Social distancing decreases an individual’s likelihood of contracting COVID-19

Abstract

Past research has established the value of social distancing as a means of deterring the spread of COVID-19 largely by examining aggregate level data. Locales in which efforts were undertaken to encourage distancing experienced reductions in their rate of transmission. However, these aggregate results tell us little about the effectiveness of social distancing at the level of the individual, which is the question addressed by the current research. Four months after participating in a study assessing their social distancing behavior, 2,120 participants indicated whether they had contracted COVID-19. Importantly, the assessment of social distancing involved not only a self-report measure of how strictly participants had followed social distancing recommendations but also a series of virtual behavior measures of social distancing. These simulations presented participants with graphical depictions mirroring specific real-world scenarios, asking them to position themselves in relation to others in the scene. Individuals’ social distancing behavior, particularly as assessed by the virtual behavior measure, predicted whether they contracted COVID-19 during the intervening 4 mo. This was true when considering only participants who reported having tested positively for the virus and when considering additional participants who, although untested, believed that they had contracted the virus. The findings offer a unique form of additional evidence as to why individuals should practice social distancing. What the individual does matters, not only for the health of the collective, but also for the specific individual.

Face masks reduce interpersonal distance in virtual reality

“…In line with risk compensation theories (Hedlund, 2000;Yan et al, 2021), wearing face masks as a safety behavior lead to a reduction of physical distancing, a behavior that is associated with an increased risk for contracting Covid-19 (Chu et al, 2020;Fazio et al, 2021). Although both wearing an own face mask and observing other persons wearing face masks reduced distances, we found that face masks of other persons only resulted in a distance reduction when participants did not wear face masks by themselves.…”

Sociodemographic and Health Belief Model Factors Associated with Nonadherence to COVID-19 Mitigation Strategies in the United States

“…Notably, other studies that employed elements of health behavior models for examining COVID-19 mitigation behaviors have reported effect estimates that are similar in magnitude to those we reported [ 14 , 15 ]. Furthermore, we leveraged a recent study [ 16 ], to demonstrate how the effect estimates we observed may be sufficient enough to contribute to variance in COVID-19 infection. This is critical to the contribution impact of our findings.…”

“…This is critical to the contribution impact of our findings. Specifically, Fazio et al [ 16 ] showed that measures of social distancing predicted COVID-19 infection among U.S. adults; that more social distancing made it less likely to contract COVID-19 ( B = −0.202, p = .019). Based on their findings, we simulated the potential contributions of the effect estimates in our study to COVID-19 outcome.…”

Impacto psicológico e fatores associados à pandemia da COVID-19 e ao distanciamento social em Minas Gerais, Brasil: Estudo transversal

“…Deste modo, apesar dos possíveis impactos psicológicos, considera-se o distanciamento social como uma medida efetiva que diminui as chances de o indivíduo contrair a COVID-19 (Fazio et al, 2021), especialmente quando combinada ao isolamento de casos e à quarentena dos contatos (Aquino et al, 2020).…”