The psychological costs of behavioral immunity following COVID-19 diagnosis

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Author(s)Spangler, Derek P.
Author(s)Li, Evaline Y.
Author(s)Revi, Gabriela S.
Author(s)Kubota, Jennifer T.
Author(s)Cloutier, Jasmin
Author(s)Lauharatanahirun, Nina
Date Accessioned2024-06-03T19:26:50Z
Date Available2024-06-03T19:26:50Z
Publication Date2024-04-30
DescriptionThis article was originally published in Scientific Reports. The version of record is available at: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-59408-6. © The Author(s) 2024
AbstractPrior COVID-19 infection may elevate activity of the behavioral immune system—the psychological mechanisms that foster avoidance of infection cues—to protect the individual from contracting the infection in the future. Such “adaptive behavioral immunity” may come with psychological costs, such as exacerbating the global pandemic’s disruption of social and emotional processes (i.e., pandemic disruption). To investigate that idea, we tested a mediational pathway linking prior COVID infection and pandemic disruption through behavioral immunity markers, assessed with subjective emotional ratings. This was tested in a sample of 734 Mechanical Turk workers who completed study procedures online during the global pandemic (September 2021–January 2022). Behavioral immunity markers were estimated with an affective image rating paradigm. Here, participants reported experienced disgust/fear and appraisals of sickness/harm risk to images varying in emotional content. Participants self-reported on their previous COVID-19 diagnosis history and level of pandemic disruption. The findings support the proposed mediational pathway and suggest that a prior COVID-19 infection is associated with broadly elevated threat emotionality, even to neutral stimuli that do not typically elicit threat emotions. This elevated threat emotionality was in turn related to disrupted socioemotional functioning within the pandemic context. These findings inform the psychological mechanisms that might predispose COVID survivors to mental health difficulties.
CitationSpangler, D.P., Li, E.Y., Revi, G.S. et al. The psychological costs of behavioral immunity following COVID-19 diagnosis. Sci Rep 14, 9899 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-59408-6
ISSN2045-2322
URLhttps://udspace.udel.edu/handle/19716/34441
Languageen_US
PublisherScientific Reports
dc.rightsAttribution 4.0 Internationalen
dc.rights.urihttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Keywordshuman behaviour
Keywordspsychology
TitleThe psychological costs of behavioral immunity following COVID-19 diagnosis
TypeArticle
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