Study finds that following health protocols offers personal protection.
The study consisted of 1,885 U.S. citizens from different ages, geographical locations, and political ideologies.
Information on pre-existing health conditions or jobs requiring participants to leave home and the extent to which they were socially distancing was collected at the start of the study.
The study involved presenting the participants with virtual behavior scenarios of various public settings (a grocery store, a crowded beach, a crosswalk). They were then asked to place themselves or fictional people in those contexts based on their social distancing preferences.
The participants were told that these scenarios would be used to assess their behavior in everyday situations, and how this behavior may change in light of the current coronavirus pandemic.
They were instructed to view the scenes and indicate how they would act. There were a total of ten scenarios presented - four assessed walking routes with people around and which seat they would choose in a coffee shop, and six were interactive scenarios where participants had to indicate how much distance they would want between themselves and people.
The participants were asked to report four months later whether they had tested positive for COVID-19 or if they believed they had been sick with a case of COVID-19. Reports revealed that 199 participants either tested positive since the initial surveys (85 people) or that they believed they had contracted COVID-19.
The analysis showed that participants were less likely to have been infected with COVID-19 if they demonstrated a high social distancing preference in the scenarios.
Russel Fazio, senior author, states, "The evidence from our work indicates there is value in socially distancing - not only to reduce the spread of a virus within a community but because it is beneficial for the individual engaging in the social distancing."
The researchers also asked the participants how much they practiced social distancing in real life.
Fazio explained that the virtual behavior measure worked much better as a predictor of illness than the self-report measure. Some people may falsely report their actual self-distancing behavior because of social desirability.
"The entire lab group came to view the pandemic as a call to action for behavioral scientists because this was ultimately a test of human behavior," Fazio said. "Rarely does a whole society gets called upon to change behavior."
Source-Medindia
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