Department of Psychology, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2021 Aug 6;16(8):e0255592. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0255592. eCollection 2021.
We predicted that people with compassionate goals to support others and not harm them practiced more COVID-19 health behaviors during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic to protect both themselves and others from infection. Three studies (N = 1,143 American adults) supported these predictions and ruled out several alternative explanations. Compassionate goals unrelated to the health context predicted COVID-19 health behaviors better than the general motivation to be healthy (Studies 2 and 3). In contrast, general health motivation predicted general health behaviors better than did compassionate goals. Compassionate goals and political ideology each explained unique variance in COVID-19 health behaviors (Studies 1-3). Compassionate goals predict unique variance in COVID-19 health behaviors beyond empathic concern, communal orientation, and relational self-construal (Study 3), supporting the unique contribution of compassionate goals to understanding health behaviors. Our results suggest that ecosystem motivation is an important predictor of health behaviors, particularly in the context of a highly contagious disease.
我们预测，那些富有同情心、希望帮助他人而不伤害他们的人，会在 SARS-CoV-2 大流行期间更多地采取 COVID-19 健康行为，以保护自己和他人免受感染。三项研究（N=1143 名美国成年人）支持了这些预测，并排除了几种替代解释。与健康背景无关的同情目标比一般的健康动机（研究 2 和 3）更能预测 COVID-19 健康行为。相比之下，一般的健康动机比同情目标更能预测一般的健康行为。同情目标和政治意识形态都能解释 COVID-19 健康行为的独特差异（研究 1-3）。同情目标在 COVID-19 健康行为方面预测出独特的差异，超过了同理心关注、社区导向和关系自我建构（研究 3），支持了同情目标对理解健康行为的独特贡献。我们的研究结果表明，生态系统动机是健康行为的一个重要预测因素，特别是在高度传染性疾病的背景下。
