How the Affective Quality of Social Connections May Contribute to Public Health: Prosocial Tendencies Account for the Links Between Positivity Resonance and Behaviors that Reduce the Spread of COVID-19

Abstract

Although behaviors such as handwashing, mask wearing, and social distancing are known to limit viral spread, early in the COVID-19 pandemic, many individuals in the United States did not adopt them. The positivity resonance theory of coexperienced positive affect (Fredrickson, 2016) holds that shared pleasant states that include the key features of mutual care and a sense of oneness through behavioral synchrony function to build prosocial tendencies (e.g., self-transcendent and otheroriented dispositions of felt unity, empathy, altruism, and general positivity toward humanity). We tested the theory-driven hypothesis that prosocial tendencies are associated with high-quality social connections characterized by the affective state of positivity resonance and, in turn, account for behaviors to slow the spread of COVID-19. We measured perceived positivity resonance at the level of social episodes either during the COVID-19 pandemic (study 1, N = 1059, April-May 2020) or before it (study 2, N = 227, March-November 2019). In both studies, cross-sectionally and prospectively, results suggest that perceived positivity resonance had a positive indirect effect on self-reported hygienic behaviors (e.g., handwashing and mask wearing), which was mediated by a latent measure of prosocial tendencies. Sensitivity analyses confirmed these mediation effects to be independent of competing predictors of prosocial tendencies (e.g., overall positive and negative affect, frequency of social interaction) and competing predictors of health behaviors (e.g., political orientation, high-risk status, illness symptoms). Effects for social distancing were mixed. Overall, findings are consistent with the view that positivity resonance builds selftranscendent prosocial tendencies that motivate behaviors to protect community health. Keywords Positive psychology . Broaden-and-build theory . Health behavior . EmotionIn step with the rise of large-scale civilizations, humans have endured pandemics, a reality made salient in early 2020 as COVID-19, the disease caused by SARS-CoV-2, reached multiple continents. Absent vaccines, societies rely on people's behaviors to curb the spread of disease. To the extent that government-mandated actions are lacking or inconsistent, people's intrinsic motivation to comply with behavioral recommendations from public health officials becomes a vital determinant of disease spread. The United States (US), however, faced both cultural and socio-political barriers to gaining immediate and widespread changes in people's daily healthprotective behaviors. Research that investigates factors that shape people's intrinsic motivation to adopt behaviors to protect community health thus becomes essential. We hypothesize that high-quality social connections marked by coexperienced positive affect bear a unique association with prosocial tendencies that are tied to behaviors that reduce viral spread, such as handwashing, mask wearing, and social distancing.

Association of compassion and empathy with prosocial health behaviors and attitudes in a pandemic

“…In a nationally representative sample, compassion for people with COVID-19 was associated with greater endorsement of government response measures to prevent transmission of the virus [13]. Another study looked at a latent construct referred to as "prosocial tendencies", which predicted health behaviors such as mask wearing [14]. A study that focused on empathy found that empathic concern, or a subset of empathy referring to feelings of concern for others in distress, was correlated with the belief that wearing a mask in public is the right thing to do [15].…”

Positivity resonance in long-term married couples: Multimodal characteristics and consequences for health and longevity.

“…The first published empirical research on positivity resonance validated a new self-report measure of perceived positivity resonance and showed that it is associated, within individuals, with flourishing mental health, fewer depressive symptoms, loneliness, and (albeit less consistently) illness symptoms, even when controlling for daily pleasant emotions or amount of social interaction more generally (Major et al, 2018). More recent research that used this same measure of perceived positivity resonance during the early months of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic found it to account for the link between trait resilience and mental health (Prinzing et al, 2020) and also to predict behaviors known to promote public health (i.e., handwashing, mask wearing, and social distancing), as mediated by prosocial tendencies (West et al, 2021). Here, we aim to advance this prior work by measuring positivity resonance through a suite of objective, dyad-level methods and in a social context (i.e., long-term marriage) to further illuminate its longitudinal consequences for health and longevity.…”

“…Previously, the trio of collective responses was articulated as “(1) shared positive emotion, (2) mutual care, and (3) biobehavioral synchrony” (Fredrickson, 2016, p. 852). Our new phrasing decouples behavioral from biological synchrony to align better with the operationalized divisions among emotion response systems into experiential (i.e., shared positive-valence affect), behavioral (i.e., caring and synchronized nonverbal behaviors), and biological (i.e., physiological linkage) indicators, as has been done in recent articles (Brown & Fredrickson, 2021; Prinzing et al, 2020; West et al, 2021).…”

Risky business: A mixed methods study of decision-making regarding COVID-19 risk at a public university in the United States

“…A second theme relates to the role of individualism vs. collectivism in decision-making during COVID-19, with prior research indicating that some are motivated by protecting others (i.e., a sense of community responsibility), while others are primarily motivated by self-protection, in which case perceived personal susceptibility is a much more influential factor (Comfort et al, 2020;Burrai et al, 2021;Kumano et al, 2021;Lu et al, 2021;West et al, 2021). Third, there is clear evidence that health behaviors related to COVID-19 have become increasingly politicized, especially in the US (Byrd and Białek, 2021;Rabin and Dutra, 2021;Tan et al, 2021;Testa et al, 2021), with the implication that perceived benefits and barriers to taking action are driven largely by political affiliation and politically driven messaging.…”