Abstract
In the current context of the global pandemic of coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19), health professionals are working with social scientists to inform government policy on how to slow the spread of the virus. An increasing amount of social scientific research has looked at the role of public message framing, for instance, but few studies have thus far examined the role of individual differences in emotional and personality-based variables in predicting virus-mitigating behaviors. In this study, we recruited a large international community sample (N = 324) to complete measures of self-perceived risk of contracting COVID-19, fear of the virus, moral foundations, political orientation, and behavior change in response to the pandemic. Consistently, the only predictor of positive behavior change (e.g., social distancing, improved hand hygiene) was fear of COVID-19, with no effect of politically relevant variables. We discuss these data in relation to the potentially functional nature of fear in global health crises.
Highlights
In the current context of the global pandemic of coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19), health professionals are working with social scientists to inform government policy on how to slow the spread of the virus
There was a notable moderate positive correlation between increased change in behavior and fear of COVID-19, suggesting that those with higher fear scores were those who were engaging with more public health behaviors
There were moderate-to-strong correlations between the Fear of Coronavirus-19 Scale (FCV-19S) scale and PROMIS Anxiety and Depression, suggesting this novel measure of fear is highly related to anxiety symptomatology
Summary
In the current context of the global pandemic of coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19), health professionals are working with social scientists to inform government policy on how to slow the spread of the virus. The one common piece of advice across different countries is that those who display symptoms of COVID-19 should self-isolate from others for a period of 7–14 days, while those without symptoms (who, importantly, could still be infected) should practice “social distancing” (World Health Organization 2020). This means that everybody should be limiting non-essential social interactions, not travel unless absolutely necessary, and work from home wherever possible to slow the interpersonal transmission of the virus. We explore some of the potential psychological triggers for this inconsistency in social distancing behavior
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