Abstract
To extrapolate the 'mood as information' theory to the unique and ecologically relevant setting of the COVID-19 pandemic; the specific aim was to inform health care providers of the impact of bringing the pandemic to salience during life satisfaction evaluations, assessing whether this 'prime' results in increased or decreased reports of satisfaction which are derived unconsciously. Prospective Randomised Interventional Study. Renal Transplant Department in a tertiary centre in the United Kingdom. 200 Renal transplant patients aged between 20 and 88 years. Telephone interviews were undertaken between 1st May, 2020 and 29th May, 2020, at the height of 'shielding' from COVID-19. Participants were randomised into 2 groups, with 1 group receiving a simple 'priming question' regarding the COVID pandemic and the other group having no prior contact. Individuals were then asked to rate their own overall lifetime happiness; desire to change; overall life satisfaction and momentary happiness on a scale of 1 to 10 for each measure. Independent sample t-tests were used to compare results between the two groups, with a type 1 error rate below 5% considered statistically significant. Participants' overall happiness with their life as a whole revealed that individuals who were primed with a question about COVID-19 reported increased overall happiness with their life compared to individuals who had not been primed (+0.88, 95% confidence interval 0.42 to 1.35, p = 0.0002). In addition, participants in the primed group reported less desire to change their life when compared to the non-primed group (-1.35, 95% confidence interval -2.06 to -0.65, p = 0.0002). Participants who were primed with the COVID-19 question also reported a higher overall satisfaction with their life than individuals who had not been primed (+1.01, 95% confidence interval 0.50 to 1.52, p = 0.0001). Finally, the participants who received the priming question demonstrated increased reported momentary happiness (+0.64, 95% confidence interval 0.03 to 1.24, p = 0.04). The results demonstrated that bringing salience to the COVID-19 pandemic with a simple question leads to positive changes in both momentary happiness and other components of global life satisfaction, thereby extrapolating evidence for the application of the mood-as-information theory to more extreme life circumstances. Given the importance of patient-reported evaluations, these findings have implications for how, when and where accurate and reproducible measurements of life satisfaction should be obtained.
Highlights
The global coronavirus pandemic of 2019/2020 (‘COVID-19’) represents a thankfully rare, yet hugely salient event that had a negative impact on multiple aspects of people’s lives across the world
Participants’ overall happiness with their life as a whole revealed that individuals who were primed with a question about COVID-19 reported increased overall happiness with their life compared to individuals who had not been primed (+0.88, 95% confidence interval 0.42 to 1.35, p = 0.0002)
Participants who were primed with the COVID-19 question reported a higher overall satisfaction with their life than individuals who had not been primed (+1.01, 95% confidence interval 0.50 to 1.52, p = 0.0001)
Summary
The global coronavirus pandemic of 2019/2020 (‘COVID-19’) represents a thankfully rare, yet hugely salient event that had a negative impact on multiple aspects of people’s lives across the world This has been the case for patients advised to undertake an extreme form of social isolation known as ‘shielding’, because of actual or perceived risk of disease severity. In a landmark study—colloquially known as the ‘weather’ experiment—Schwarz and Clore identified the influence of such momentary circumstances on the judgement of individuals’ lives more globally (in terms of satisfaction and happiness), and that this may occur outside a subject’s awareness [3] These authors undertook telephone calls, asking participants for their subjective opinions on life satisfaction and happiness.
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