Social Distance during the COVID-19 Pandemic Reflects Perceived Rather Than Actual Risk

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health

Ferdinando Fornara¹  Andrea Bosco²  AlessandroOronzo Caffò²  Antonella Lopez²  Francesca Pazzaglia³  Tina Iachini⁴  Francesco Ruotolo⁴  Antonella Ferrara⁴  FilomenaLeonela Sbordone⁴  Gennaro Ruggiero⁴  Zaira Cattaneo⁵  Maria Arioli⁵  Francesca Frassinetti⁶  Michela Candini⁶ 

[1] Department of Education, Psychology, Philosophy, Università di Cagliari, 09123 Cagliari, Italy;Department of Educational Sciences, Psychology, Communication, Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro, 70121 Bari, Italy;Department of General Psychology, Università degli Studi di Padova, 35121 Padova, Italy;Department of Psychology, Università degli Studi della Campania “L. Vanvitelli”, 81100 Caserta, Italy;Department of Psychology, Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca, 20126 Milano, Italy;Department of Psychology, Università di Bologna, 40127 Bologna, Italy;

关键词: social distancing;    interpersonal space;    COVID-19;    risk perception;    anxiety;   

DOI  :  10.3390/ijerph18115504

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Interpersonal space (IPS) is the area surrounding our own bodies in which we interact comfortably with other individuals. During the COVID-19 pandemic, keeping larger IPS than usual, along with wearing a face mask, is one of the most effective measures to slow down the COVID-19 outbreak. Here, we explore the contribution of actual and perceived risk of contagion and anxiety levels in regulating our preferred social distance from other people during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy. In this study, 1293 individuals from six Italian regions with different levels of actual risk of infection participated in an online survey assessing their perceived risk to be infected, level of anxiety and IPS. Two tasks were adopted as measures of interpersonal distance: the Interpersonal Visual Analogue Scale and a questionnaire evaluating interpersonal distance with and without face mask. The results showed that the IPS regulation was affected by how people subjectively perceived COVID-19 risk and the related level of anxiety, not by actual objective risk. This clarifies that the role of threat in prompting avoidant behaviors expressed in increased IPS does not merely reflect environmental events but rather how they are subjectively experienced and represented.

【 授权许可】

Unknown