ArticleJournal of applied social psychology2022
I love you too much to keep social distance: Closeness in relationships and (dis)engagement in preventive behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Article in Journal of applied social psychology, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
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Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Uncovering COVID-19 vaccine acceptance and intent in 15 developing countries: a multi-level, clustered analysis of six months of repeated, cross-sectional data.BMC infectious diseases · 2026Article
- I love you too much to keep social distance: Closeness in relationships and (dis)engagement in preventive behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic.Journal of applied social psychology · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Although we are witnessing a new phase in the management of COVID-19, understanding what predicts adherence to preventive behaviors still remains crucial. In this study we focus on interpersonal relationships by specifically investigating whether engagement in preventive behaviors when in the presence of others may be a function of the type of relationship (in terms of closeness) one has with others. Because close others are often perceived similar to the self compared to strangers, we put forward that close relationships may inadvertently decrease COVID-19 risk perceptions which may ultimately decrease compliance with recommended behaviors when in their presence. To test this hypothesis, 747 Italian respondents were invited to answer one out of four versions of a questionnaire differing on the target (i.e., friends vs. parents vs. grandparents vs. strangers), including questions regarding COVID-19 risk perceptions and intentions to engage in preventive behaviors. Mediation analysis showed that close relationships (i.e., with friends, parents, and grandparents) compared to nonclose relationships (i.e., with strangers) predicted lower intentions to engage in preventive behaviors via lower risk perceptions. Altogether, these results shed light on the role played by closeness in indirectly shaping individuals' dis(engagement) in preventive behaviors and contribute to better understand possible unconscious biases which may undermine our safety during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.