We are very happy with Janine Stierand for her first publication! The first part of the study was an online evaluation of social situations as part of a clinical piloting. Suddenly, right after our first data collection, the COVID-19 pandemic started in 2020 which dramatically impacted social life in general. In order to examine if changes in social distance regulations had impacted the evaluation of social situations, we started a second data collection with the same subjects and the same material. Thus, in two online surveys, conducted in October 2019 and April 2020, 58 participants rated their personal level of (dis)comfort for social situations as depicted on sketches. We found that the change of participant’s appraisal of the social situations during the COVID-19 pandemic related to perceived infection risk. Both, the risk associated with the specific scenario as well as the general belief of short-term infection risk were associated with this change.
Check out the publication here:
Perceived Risk of Infection Linked to Changes in Comfort in Social Situations From Before to During the COVID-19 Pandemic. Stierand J, Luebber F, Krach S, Paulus FM & Rademacher L. Front. Psychiatry, 13 August 2021; https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2021.678072