Institute for Planetary Health Behavior, Health Communication, University of Erfurt, Erfurt, Germany.
Health Communication Working Group, Implementation Research, Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine, Hamburg, Germany.
Sci Rep. 2023 Feb 10;13(1):2418. doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-29239-y.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, physical distancing was one of the more important behaviours for reducing the spread of the virus. The present study investigated the influence on pathogen avoidance of familiarity with other people at private gatherings. Based on the social identity model of risk taking and the theory of the behavioural immune system, we assumed that greater familiarity with others would make people feel more connected with one another and decrease situational pathogen avoidance. This could result in lower perceptions of the risk of contracting COVID-19 and fewer protective behaviours. Two experiments (n = 1022, n = 994) showed that the negative influence of greater familiarity on the perceived risk of infection and protective behaviour is explained by an increased feeling of connectedness and less feeling of situational pathogen avoidance. In an additional survey, the participants (n = 23,023) rated the quality of their past social contacts. The correlational analyses showed that the familiarity of the other person was more important in explaining variance in protective behaviours than attitudes toward those behaviours or the pandemic situation itself. Understanding the process that result in an explosive increase in infection after social gatherings can improve infection control in the future.
在 COVID-19 大流行期间，保持身体距离是减少病毒传播的更重要行为之一。本研究调查了在私人聚会上对其他人熟悉程度对病原体回避的影响。基于风险承担的社会认同模型和行为免疫系统理论，我们假设与他人的熟悉程度越高，人们彼此之间的联系就越紧密，情境病原体回避就越少。这可能会导致人们对感染 COVID-19 的风险的感知降低，保护行为减少。两个实验（n=1022，n=994）表明，与他人的熟悉程度对感染风险和保护行为的负面影响可以通过增强的联系感和较少的情境病原体回避感来解释。在一项额外的调查中，参与者（n=23023）对他们过去的社交接触质量进行了评分。相关分析表明，与对这些行为或大流行本身的态度相比，他人的熟悉程度在解释保护行为的差异方面更为重要。了解导致社交聚会后感染迅速增加的过程可以改善未来的感染控制。
