RAPID: Collaborative Research: Social Distancing During Pandemics: Developing Methods to Balance Affiliation and Disease-Avoidance Motivations

人们对彼此互动有着强烈的需求。他们也有强烈的愿望来避免疾病。保持社会距离是阻止疾病传播的主要行为方法。然而，社交距离违背了社会互动的自然愿望。这两种动机之间的紧张关系会造成心理困扰，并可能导致人们在努力缓解压力和孤独感时违反面对面接触的限制。这尤其可能发生在那些无法接触到高度沉浸式虚拟社交形式的人身上，比如让人们看到朋友和家人的基于互联网的视频通话。由于老年人对基于技术的互动平台不太熟悉，这种情况也可能更常见于老年人（他们最容易感染COVID-19）。通过更好地了解人们如何解决与他人互动的需要与避免疾病的愿望之间的紧张关系，该项目将为旨在遏制疾病传播的公共卫生干预措施的发展提供信息。这个项目将交往的需要与避免疾病的愿望进行了对比。目的之一是为制定干预措施提供信息，以避免在保持社交距离时感到孤独。研究1收集了同一参与者在多天内的数据。孤独感的测量，对感染疾病的担忧，以及社会互动的数量和类型将被收集。该研究验证了这样一个假设，即参与虚拟社会互动有限的参与者（例如，经济手段有限的人，老年人）将感到最孤独，并报告对疾病的担忧减少，这将与更频繁地违反社交距离行为有关。研究2通过实验操纵包容与排斥的感觉来测试社会孤立的影响和感染疾病的担忧。这两项研究都是基于大量具有代表性的美国居民样本，以确保研究结果适用于美国不同年龄范围、地理区域和社会经济群体。该研究阐明了不同的心理过程是如何相互作用并最终影响社会行为的。该研究进一步调查了人们如何在不牺牲安全的情况下安全地满足他们的交往动机。长期目标是为制定干预措施提供信息，以便在当前和未来的大流行病期间促进适当的行为反应。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

People have a powerful need to interact with each other. They also have strong desires to avoid disease. Social distancing is the primary behavioral method to stop disease from spreading. Yet, social distancing goes against the natural desire for social interactions. The tension between those dual motives can cause psychological distress, and may lead people to violate restrictions on face-to-face contact in their effort to relieve stress and loneliness. This is especially likely for people who do not have access to highly immersive forms of virtual socialization, such as internet-based video calls that let people see friends and family. It may also apply more often for older adults (who are most vulnerable to COVID-19) because of less familiarity with technology-based interaction platforms. By better understanding how people resolve the tension between the need to interact with others and the desire to avoid disease, this project will inform the development of public health interventions aimed at curbing the spread of disease.This project contrasts the need to affiliate with the desire to avoid disease. One aim is to inform the development of interventions designed to avoid loneliness while engaging in social distancing. Study 1 collects data from the same participants across multiple days. Measures of loneliness, concerns with contracting an illness, and amounts and types of social interactions will be collected. The research tests the hypothesis that participants with limited access to virtual social interactions (e.g., those with limited financial means, the elderly) will feel most lonely and report decreased concerns about disease, which will be associated with more frequent violations of social distancing behaviors. Study 2 experimentally manipulates feelings of inclusion versus exclusion to test for effects of social isolation and for the concern of contracting the disease. Both studies are based on large and representative samples of U.S. residents to ensure the findings are applicable across different age ranges, geographical regions, and socioeconomic groups within the country. The research elucidates how various psychological processes work against each other and in interaction to ultimately influence social behavior. The research further investigates how people can safely satisfy their motives to affiliate without sacrificing safety. The long-term goal is to inform the development of interventions that may be developed to promote appropriate behavioral responses during the current and future pandemics.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.