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Did Social Connection Decline During the First Wave of COVID-19? : The Role of Extraversion Folk, Dunigan; Okabe-Miyamoto, Karynna; Dunn, Elizabeth, 1977-; Lyubomirsky, Sonja

Abstract

In two pre-registered studies, we tracked changes in individuals’ feelings of social connection during the COVID-19 pandemic. Both studies capitalized on measures of social connection and well-being obtained prior to the COVID-19 pandemic by recruiting the same participants again in the midst of the pandemic’s upending effects. Study 1 included a sample of undergraduates from a Canadian university (N = 467), and Study 2 included community adults primarily from the United States and the United Kingdom (N = 336). Our results suggest that people experienced relatively little change in feelings of social connection in the face of the initial reshaping of their social lives caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Exploratory analyses suggested that relatively extraverted individuals exhibited larger declines in social connection. However, after controlling for levels of social connection prior to the pandemic (as pre-registered), the negative effect of extraversion reversed (Study 1) or disappeared (Study 2).

Item Metadata

Title
Did Social Connection Decline During the First Wave of COVID-19? : The Role of Extraversion
Creator
Folk, Dunigan; Okabe-Miyamoto, Karynna; Dunn, Elizabeth, 1977-; Lyubomirsky, Sonja
Publisher
University of California Press
Date Issued
2020-07-24
Description
In two pre-registered studies, we tracked changes in individuals’ feelings of social connection during the COVID-19 pandemic. Both studies capitalized on measures of social connection and well-being obtained prior to the COVID-19 pandemic by recruiting the same participants again in the midst of the pandemic’s upending effects. Study 1 included a sample of undergraduates from a Canadian university (N = 467), and Study 2 included community adults primarily from the United States and the United Kingdom (N = 336). Our results suggest that people experienced relatively little change in feelings of social connection in the face of the initial reshaping of their social lives caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Exploratory analyses suggested that relatively extraverted individuals exhibited larger declines in social connection. However, after controlling for levels of social connection prior to the pandemic (as pre-registered), the negative effect of extraversion reversed (Study 1) or disappeared (Study 2).
Subject
Extraversion; Personality; Open data; Connection; Loneliness; COVID-19
Genre
Article
Type
Text
Language
eng
Date Available
2021-06-11
Provider
Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
Rights
Attribution 4.0 International
DOI
10.14288/1.0398333
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/2429/78605
Affiliation
Arts, Faculty of; Non UBC; Psychology, Department of
Citation
Folk, D., Okabe-Miyamoto, K., Dunn, E., & Lyubomirsky, S. (2020). Did social connection decline during the first wave of COVID-19?: The role of extraversion. Collabra. Psychology, 6(1), 37.
Publisher DOI
10.1525/collabra.365
Peer Review Status
Reviewed
Scholarly Level
Faculty; Graduate
Copyright Holder
Authors
Rights URI
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
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Attribution 4.0 International