Authors
Pelin Gul, Nils Keesmekers, Pinar Elmas, Fatma Ebru Köse, Tolga Koskun, Arnaud Wisman, Tom R Kupfer
Publication date
2022/11
Journal
Social Psychological and Personality Science
Volume
13
Issue
8
Pages
1281-1293
Publisher
SAGE Publications
Description
A range of studies have sought to understand why people’s compliance with social distancing varied during the COVID-19 pandemic. Recent theory suggests that pathogen avoidance behavior is based not only on perceived risk but on a trade-off between the perceived costs of pathogen exposure and the perceived benefits of social contact. We hypothesized that compliance with social distancing may therefore be explained by a trade-off between pathogen avoidance and various social motives such as mate-seeking. Two studies conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic showed that social distancing was positively associated with disease avoidance motives but negatively associated with social motives, especially mating motives. These associations remained after controlling for predictors identified by previous research, including risk perception and personality. Findings indicate that people who are more …
Total citations
202120222023257