Gong Yuanchao, Zhang Linxiu, Sun Yan
Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
Humanit Soc Sci Commun. 2021;8(1):98. doi: 10.1057/s41599-021-00774-1. Epub 2021 Apr 15.
Social distancing is an effective measure to prevent epidemic infections during a pandemic outbreak, but its psychological value in COVID-19 pandemic mitigation remained less detected. Our study fills this gap by conducting a nationwide survey in China between 12 and 25 February (2020), and a follow-up survey targeting the same participants between 25 and 28 March (2020). We have discovered that perceived increased time staying at home, a subjective agency for social distancing, positively predicts not only risk perception of COVID-19 epidemic at the outbreak and eased stage, but also predicts subjective controllability of COVID-19 epidemic at the eased stage. Given that risk perception indicates potential active engagement of preventative behavior and that subjective controllability associating with self-efficacy could promote individual health behavior, this study preliminarily justifies the value of social distancing from the angle of perceptual factors, adding to existing mounting evidence of its effect on physically controlling pandemic spread.
社交距离是在大流行爆发期间预防疫情感染的一项有效措施，但其在减轻新冠疫情方面的心理价值仍未得到充分探究。我们的研究通过在2020年2月12日至25日期间在中国进行全国性调查，并在2020年3月25日至28日期间针对相同参与者进行后续调查，填补了这一空白。我们发现，感知到在家停留时间增加，这一社交距离的主观动因，不仅能正向预测新冠疫情爆发期和缓解期的风险感知，还能预测缓解期新冠疫情的主观可控性。鉴于风险感知表明预防行为可能的积极参与，且与自我效能相关的主观可控性能够促进个体健康行为，本研究从感知因素的角度初步论证了社交距离的价值，为其在实际控制疫情传播方面的作用增添了更多现有证据。
