To reduce the spread of COVID-19 transmission, government agencies in the United States (US) have recommended COVID prevention guidelines, including wearing masks and social distancing. However, compliance with these guidelines have been inconsistent. This study examined whether individual differences in decision-making and motivational propensities predicted compliance with COVID-19 preventative behaviors in a representative sample of US adults (N=225). Participants completed an online study in September 2020 that included a risky choice decision-making task, temporal discounting task, and measures of appropriate mask wearing, social distancing, and perceived risk of engaging in public activities. Linear regression results indicated that greater risky decision-making behavior and temporal discounting were associated with less appropriate mask-wearing behavior and social distancing. Additionally, demographic factors, including political affiliation and income level, were also associated with differences in COVID-19 preventative behaviors. Path analysis results showed that risky decision-making behavior, temporal discounting, and risk perception collectively predicted 61% of the variance in appropriate mask-wearing behavior. Individual differences in general decision-making patterns are therefore highly predictive of who complies with COVID-19 prevention guidelines.
Background and Objectives: Dysfunction in reward processing is a hallmark feature of depression. In the context of reinforcement learning, previous research has linked depression with reliance on simple habit-driven (‘model-free’) learning strategies over more complex, goal-directed (‘model-based’) strategies. However, the relationship between depression and habit-breaking remains an under-explored research area. The objective of the current study was to bridge this gap by investigating the effect of depressive symptoms on habit formation and habit-breaking under monetary and social feedback conditions. Additionally, we examined whether spontaneous eyeblink rate (EBR), an indirect marker for striatal dopamine levels, would modulate such effects. Methods: Depressive symptoms were operationalized using self-report measures. To examine differences in habit formation and habit breaking, undergraduate participants (N=156) completed a two-stage reinforcement learning task with a devaluation procedure using either monetary or social feedback. Results: Regression results showed that in the monetary feedback condition, spontaneous EBR moderated the relationship between depressive symptoms and model-free strategies; individuals with more depressive symptomatology and high EBR (higher dopamine levels) exhibited increased reliance on model-free strategies. Furthermore, depressive symptoms negatively predicted devaluation sensitivity, indicative of difficulty in habit-breaking, in both monetary and social feedback contexts. Limitations: Social feedback relied on fixed feedback rather than real-time peer evaluations; depressive symptoms were measured using self-report rather than diagnostic criteria for Major Depressive Disorder; dopaminergic functioning was measured using EBR rather than PET imaging.Conclusions: These findings have implications for identifying altered patterns of habit formation and deficits in habit-breaking among those experiencing depressive symptoms.
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