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The Journal of General Psychology
ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/vgen20
Social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic
as a predictor of daily psychological, social, and
health-related outcomes
Máire B. Ford
To cite this article: Máire B. Ford (2020): Social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic as
a predictor of daily psychological, social, and health-related outcomes, The Journal of General
Psychology, DOI: 10.1080/00221309.2020.1860890
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00221309.2020.1860890
Published online: 23 Dec 2020.
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Social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic as a
predictor of daily psychological, social, and health-
related outcomes
M
aire B. Ford
Loyola Marymount University
ABSTRACT
In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, striking public
health measures have been implemented to encourage phys-
ical distancing in order to slow the spread of disease.
However, the impact of these measures on health and well-
being is not well understood. In the current study a daily diary
methodology was used to investigate the effects of social iso-
lation due to the COVID-19 pandemic on a variety of out-
comes with 230 undergraduate students. Participants
completed an online diary for 3 days, reporting on daily social
distancing behaviors, psychological wellbeing/resources,
social/interpersonal connection with others, health behaviors,
and health outcomes. Overall, daily social distancing (close
adherence to social distancing guidelines) was associated with
decreases in psychological wellbeing/resources, less social/
interpersonal connection with others (including technology-
mediated communication), fewer positive health behaviors,
and increased reports of stress-related physical illness symp-
toms. Discussion centers on implications of these findings as
well as the importance of identifying ways to mitigate the
effects of these necessary but costly measures on health
and wellbeing.
ARTICLE HISTORY
Received 30 September 2020
Accepted 28 November 2020
KEYWORDS
Coronavirus; COVID-19; daily
diary; health; social
connection; social
distancing; social isolation
As the reality of the COVID-19 pandemic revealed itself in the early
months of 2020 public health experts called for individuals to rapidly and
abruptly retreat to their homes to slow the spread of an accelerating out-
break of this highly contagious virus. Stay-at-home mandates and social
distancing guidelines required the closure of schools and businesses, send-
ing people to a somewhat isolated existence in their own homes and mark-
edly changing daily life. Although these measures are necessary in order to
control the virus, the disruption of social connections may have harmful
effects on mental and physical health.
It is no secret that people of all ages are most likely to thrive when they
feel socially connected. In fact, when asked to identify factors that
CONTACT M
aire Ford mford9@lmu.edu Psychology, Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, CA
90045, USA.
ß2020 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
THE JOURNAL OF GENERAL PSYCHOLOGY
https://doi.org/10.1080/00221309.2020.1860890
contribute most to personal happiness, a majority of individuals place
social connection at the top of their list (Berscheid, 1985). Why might
social connection be integral to human happiness? Several theorists argue
that humans have a fundamental need for social inclusion that evolved
because social ties and interpersonal attachments were critical to the sur-
vival and reproductive success of our human ancestors (Baumeister &
Leary, 1995; Bowlby, 1982; Dickerson & Kemeny, 2004; MacDonald &
Leary, 2005; Williams, 2001). The adaptive value of social acceptance is evi-
dent in contemporary life, where social ties are an important source of
material and emotional resources that sustain health and well-being (for a
review see Holt-Lunstad & Uchino, 2015). But what happens when human
social connection is necessarily disrupted? The COVID-19 pandemic has
created a situation whereby social connection has been limited due to stay-
at-home orders and other social distancing measures that are designed to
stem the spread of the COVID-19 virus. Although necessary, these meas-
ures may bring with them negative consequences for psychological and
interpersonal wellbeing, as well as negative health-related outcomes. The
COVID-19 pandemic is arguably the most severe worldwide pandemic in
over 100 years (Gates, 2020). As such, this experience of widespread, pro-
longed, and significant social disruption is a relatively novel experience that
is worthy of empirical investigation. The goal of the current study is to
answer the call for psychological research investigating the impact of social
distancing as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic (Brooks et al., 2020).
Specifically, this study examines the effects of social disconnection due to
social distancing measures on psychological wellbeing/resources, social/
interpersonal connection with others, health behaviors, and
health outcomes.
The term social disconnection refers to experiences that either involve
the disruption of a social bond (or social bonds) or involve a perception
that one’s own social bonds are insufficient (in the case of feelings of lone-
liness). Social disconnection is reliably associated with negative psycho-
logical consequences including negative mood (Blackhart, Nelson, Knowles,
& Baumeister, 2009; Gerber & Wheeler, 2009), anxiety (Mijuskovic, 1986),
depression (Cacioppo, Hawkley, & Thisted, 2010; Ford & Collins, 2013;
Leary, Tambor, Terdal, & Downs, 1995), perceived stress (Ford & Collins,
2013), and impaired cognitive and self-regulatory abilities (Baumeister,
DeWall, Ciarocco, & Twenge, 2005; Baumeister, Twenge, & Nuss, 2002;
Ford & Collins, 2013).
Social disconnection is also associated with maladaptive social or inter-
personal responses. For example, those who have been ostracized report a
stronger desire to distance from others and be alone (Ren, Wesselmann, &
Williams, 2016) and indicate a preference for spaces that allow for
2 M. B. FORD
withdrawal rather than spaces that would be more conducive to interaction
(Meagher & Marsh, 2017). Paradoxically, this tendency for those who are
experiencing social disconnection to engage in self-protective social with-
drawal further limits opportunities for connection and leaves them feeling
unsupported (Cacioppo et al., 2006).
Finally, social disconnection is associated with negative physiological and
health-related responses, including increased cardiovascular reactivity
(Sommer, Kirkland, Newman, Estrella, & Andreassi, 2009; Stroud,
Tanofsky-Kraff, Wilfley, & Salovey, 2000) increased levels of stress hor-
mones (Dickerson & Kemeny, 2004; Dickerson, Gable, Irwin, Aziz, &
Kemeny, 2009), poorer immune responsivity (Pressman et al., 2005), more
self-reported physical symptoms (Segrin, Burke, & Dunivan, 2012) and
poorer health behaviors including smoking, physical inactivity, poorer eat-
ing, and poorer sleep (Cacioppo et al., 2002; Hawkley, Thisted, &
Cacioppo, 2009; Nieminen et al., 2013). Perhaps most striking, a meta-ana-
lysis revealed that both actual and perceived social isolation/disconnection
were reliably associated with mortality (Holt-Lunstad, Smith, Baker, Harris,
& Stephenson, 2015). Overall the association between social disconnection
and health is so robust that it has lead researchers to call for the advance-
ment of social connection as a public health priority (Holt-Lunstad, Robles,
& Sbarra, 2017).
Given the well-documented association between social disconnection and
negative outcomes, it is important to investigate how the widespread social
isolation due to the COVID-19 pandemic might affect psychological and
interpersonal wellbeing as well as physical health. This is the main goal of
the current study. The social disconnection associated with the pandemic
poses a significant threat to health and wellbeing, especially given the
unknown trajectory and potentially lengthy timeline of the pandemic (and
of necessary social distancing measures). Social distancing is essential to
control the spread of COVID-19 but it is also important to understand
how it may be impacting psychological and social wellbeing as well as
physical health. This knowledge can then be used to determine what
resources should be made available to mitigate the possible damage of the
social disconnection experienced as a result of this pandemic.
Although researchers have speculated on the probable impact of social
isolation due to the COVID-19 pandemic (Brooks et al., 2020; Galea,
Merchant, & Lurie, 2020, Saltzman, Hansel, & Bordnick, 2020) thus far
very little empirical data has been published. A handful of studies have
revealed inconsistent patterns of findings with regard to the association
between social disconnection (due to social distancing measures or stay-at-
home orders) and wellbeing. Two of these studies investigated the impact
of stay-at-home orders and found little negative impact of these orders on
THE JOURNAL OF GENERAL PSYCHOLOGY 3
psychological and physical wellbeing. However, neither study investigated
the relationship between participants’actual social distancing behaviors and
their wellbeing (Folk, Okabe-Miyamoto, Dunn, & Lyubomirsky, 2020;
Luchetti et al., 2020). Rather, they compared participants’scores on meas-
ures of wellbeing before stay-at-home orders were in place with their scores
on those same measures of wellbeing after stay-at-home orders went into
place. Two other studies found preliminary evidence for an increase in psy-
chological distress (including feelings of health-related anxiety, depression,
and loneliness) as a result of stay-at-home orders (Best, Law, Roach, &
Wilbiks, 2020; Tull et al., 2020), but again, the association between actual
social distancing behaviors and outcomes was not assessed. In yet another
study, increases or decreases in social distancing behaviors were assessed by
having participants recall their pre-pandemic distancing behaviors as well
as their behaviors over the past several days (during the pandemic).
Increased social distancing behaviors were found to be associated with
reductions in psychological wellbeing, including increased symptoms of
depression, increased symptoms of generalized anxiety disorder, intrusive
thoughts, insomnia, and acute stress (Marroqu
ın, Vine, & Morgan, 2020).
In the current study, actual social distancing behaviors were assessed on a
daily basis so that the association between an individual’s actual daily social
distancing behaviors and their daily health/wellbeing could be assessed.
Thus, the current study allows for an examination of changes in health/
wellbeing associated with daily fluctuations in distancing behavior. It thus
offers a more sensitive analysis of the impact of social disconnection due to
the COVID-19 pandemic on psychological wellbeing. The current study
also investigates the impact of social disconnection due to the COVID-19
pandemic on social/interpersonal wellbeing and physical health, as well as
psychological wellbeing. Prior studies have primarily focused on psycho-
logical wellbeing.
In addition to revealing the impact of social disconnection due to the
COVID-19 pandemic on daily health and social and emotional wellbeing,
findings from the current study also contribute to the literature on social
isolation/disconnection by clarifying how deeply hardwired the human goal
for connectedness is. Although the psychological literature clearly suggests
that social connection is vitally important to human wellbeing it is import-
ant to note that the nature of the disconnection experienced by humans as
the result of the pandemic is somewhat different from the nature of the
disconnection that psychologists have typically focused on in the literature.
Most of the psychological literature has focused on social disconnection
that is largely personal in nature and can be easily interpreted as a reflec-
tion of one’s self-worth. For example, much of this literature is based on
experiences of interpersonal rejection, or exclusion, or perceptions that
4 M. B. FORD
one’s connectedness needs are not adequately fulfilled by one’s social net-
work. All of these experiences would naturally lead someone to doubt their
own worth and value. In fact, prominent theories on the importance of
human connection state that social disconnection is painful precisely
because it calls one’s social or relational value into question (Leary, 2012).
In contrast, it would be less likely that one would interpret a mandated
social isolation resulting from a pandemic as a reflection of their self-worth.
Thus, the social disconnection resulting from the pandemic stems from a
less personal source and it may not trigger the same level of responses as
the more personal types of disconnection that researchers typically focus
on. However, if the findings from the present study are consistent with pre-
dictions from the psychological literature this would suggest that even in
the absence of threats to one’s social or relational value humans still
respond to social disconnection with deeply hardwired cognitive, emo-
tional, physiological and behavioral responses.
The present study
The present study utilized a daily diary methodology in which participants
answered questions each evening for 3 days about the following: daily
social distancing behaviors (social disconnection), psychological wellbeing/
resources (mood, appraisals of stress, overall ratings of one’s day), daily
social responses/behaviors (perceptions of social support and use of tech-
nology to connect with others), daily health behaviors (exercise, healthy
eating, spending time outside, and engaging in spiritual practice), and daily
physical illness symptoms. Analyses were conducted to examine the effects
of social disconnection on social, psychological, and physical health and
wellbeing by comparing participants’outcomes on their high social distanc-
ing days (high social disconnection days) to their outcomes on their low
social distancing days (low social connection days). Given the paramount
importance of social connection to human wellbeing, it was predicted that
social distancing would be associated with decrements in social, psycho-
logical, and physical health and wellbeing.
Method
Participants
A total of 230 undergraduate participants (62 males, 165 females, 1 trans-
gender, and 1 prefer not to say) were recruited for the study.
1
They ranged
in age from 18 to 36 (M¼20, SD ¼1.80). 4.8% were African American/
Black, 13% were Asian American/Asian/Pacific Islander, 9% were Latina/o,
.4% were Native American, 40% were Caucasian/White, and 12% indicated
THE JOURNAL OF GENERAL PSYCHOLOGY 5
that they were either other or multiple races/ethnicities. Participants com-
pleted an average of 2.90 diaries (out of 3). Participants received either
course credit or were entered in a drawing to win one of three
$50 giftcards.
Procedure
Participants were recruited via the psychology department subject pool and
via an email recruitment sent to students at two university campuses in
southern California. Participants were instructed to complete online daily
diary questionnaires at the end of the day, each day, for three days.
Because universities had closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, partici-
pants were living in varied locations, with the majority (N¼161) living in
California, 53 living in other states, and 16 living outside of the US. Only
2.6% of participants were living alone and the rest were living in a house-
hold with at least one other person. This study was conducted during the
early days of the pandemic from late March through April of 2020. At this
time stay-at-home orders were in place across much of the world.
Background measures
General perceptions of social interactions
On the first day of the study participants reported on their general percep-
tions of their social interactions since COVID-related social distancing
restrictions had commenced. They were asked to respond to the following
statements using a scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly
agree). The first statement read “Overall, I have had fewer social interac-
tions since the coronavirus restrictions started”and the second statement
read “Overall, I have had lower quality interactions since the coronavirus
restrictions started.”Participants highly endorsed both the first (M¼5.88,
SD ¼1.47) and the second statement (M¼5.14, SD ¼1.88), indicating a
general sense of a decline in social functioning. These statements were
designed to provide general supplemental descriptive data regarding
participants’general perceptions of quality of their social interactions at
the beginning of study. In the next section, I discuss measures relevant to
the main hypotheses regarding the daily effects of social distanc-
ing behavior.
Daily measures
Social distancing
Participants reported on their level of social distancing each day by
choosing a response item that best described their behavior that day.
6 M. B. FORD
The responses ranged from 1 (I have stayed at home and not left the house
today)to4(I have gone about business as usual today, leaving the house
even for non-essential errands and not practicing social distancing) with a
mean of 1.49 (SD ¼.68). For ease of interpretation, responses were
reversed-scored so that high scores on this item indicated high levels of
social distancing.
Daily measures of general psychological well-being
As is typical in daily diary studies, most variables were assessed with short-
ened versions of scales in order to avoid participant burnout across mul-
tiple daily questionnaire sessions (Nezlek, 2012). Each scale is discussed in
detail below.
Daily mood. Mood was measured using a 15-item emotion adjective check-
list designed for the purposes of this study. Mood items that were relevant
to a context of social disconnection were presented to participants (e.g.,
happy, depressed, anxious, detached from others, loved/valued) and they
were asked to rate the extent to which they experienced each emotion that
day (“Today I felt …”) using a scale that ranged from 1 (not at all/never)
to 5 (very often/frequently). Negatively valenced emotions were reverse-
scored and all responses were averaged to create an index of mood where
high scores represented more positive mood (a¼.92,
M¼3.31, SD ¼0.79).
Daily stress appraisals. Daily appraisals of stress were measured using six
items adapted from the Perceived Stress Scale (Cohen, Kamarck, &
Mermelstein, 1983). The scale included items such as “Today, I felt that I
was coping well or effectively handling events that were occurring in my
life?,”and “Today, I felt overwhelmed by demands at home, school, or
work.”Items were rated on a scale that ranged from 1 (not at all/never)to
5(very often/frequently). Guided by factor analysis and by previous psycho-
metric analysis of the Perceived Stress Scale (Taylor, 2015), two sub-scales
of daily appraisals of stress were computed. The first sub-scale was created
by averaging the four items that indicated a sense of self-efficacy in coping
with daily stressors (a¼.88, M¼3.18, SD ¼.89). The second factor was
created by averaging the two items that indicated a sense of helplessness in
coping with daily stressors (a¼.90, M¼3.18, SD ¼1.26).
Overall ratings of one’s day. Participants were asked to rate their day overall.
The responses ranged from 1 (extremely bad)to7(extremely good) with a
mean of 4.60 (SD ¼.98).
THE JOURNAL OF GENERAL PSYCHOLOGY 7
Daily measures of social/interpersonal wellbeing and connection with others
Daily perceptions of social support.Daily perceptions of social support were
measured with six items adapted from the International Support Evaluation
List (ISEL-12; Cohen, Mermelstein, Kamarck, & Hoberman, 1985). These
items measured various types of social support, including appraisal support,
tangible support, and belonging support. Items included, “Today, I felt like
there were people who I could talk to about my problems (including online),”
“Today, I felt like there were people available (even online) to turn to for
help,”“Today, I felt like there were people available (even online) that I could
spend time with.”Items were rated on a scale that ranged from 1 (strongly dis-
agree)to5(strongly agree), and were averaged to form a daily perception of
social support index (a¼.80, M¼3.77, SD ¼.82).
Dailyuse of technology to connect.Use of technology for the purpose of con-
necting with others was measured with two separate items created for this
study. First participants read the statement “Today I used technology to
connect with others or for companionship”and indicated the degree to
which this was true for them using a scale that ranged from 1 (not at all/
never)to5(extremely/alot). The mean score for this item was 3.43
(SD ¼1.09). Participants were also asked to estimate the number of minutes
that they “used technology today for the purpose of connecting with others
(posting on social media, reading others’posts, gathering with a class
online, using facetime, phone calling, etc.).”The mean for this item was
142 minutes (SD ¼136.58).
Daily health behaviors and physical illness symptoms
Daily health behaviors. Participants were presented with a variety of health
behaviors and were asked to indicate the degree to which they engaged in a
given health behavior that day using a scale ranging from 1 (not at all) to 5
(a lot). The health behaviors they rated were as follows: “Today I exer-
cised.,”“Today I practiced healthy eating.,”“Today I spent time outside.,”
“Today, I spent time doing something spiritual (e.g., meditating, praying,
being mindful, practicing gratitude, etc.).”A daily index of health behaviors
was created by averaging participants responses to the items above, where
high scores indicated healthier behaviors overall (a¼.57, M¼2.40, SD
¼.76).
2
Additionally, the number of total minutes that participants engaged in
healthful activities was assessed. Participants were asked to report the total
minutes they spent, exercising, spending time outside, and engaging in
spiritual practice. A measure of daily time spent engaging in healthful
activities was created by summing the number of minutes spent engaging
in each behavior listed above (M¼88.77, SD ¼100.64).
8 M. B. FORD
Daily physical illness symptoms. Daily stress-related physical illness symptoms
were measured using a subset of six items from the Somatic Symptoms sub-
scale of the Brief Symptom Inventory (Derogatis & Melisaratos, 1983).
Participants were presented with a list of illness-related physical symptoms
(e.g., cold/flu symptoms, short of breath, body aches) and asked to indicate
how much they were bothered by each symptom that day, using a scale from
1(not at all)to5(extremely/a lot). An index of physical illness symptoms was
created by averaging responses to the six items (a¼.78, M¼1.27, SD ¼0.49).
Results
Data analytic strategy
Software designed to analyze hierarchically nested data (with days nested
within-person) was used to investigate reactivity to daily social isolation.
Multilevel analyses were conducted using HLM software Version 6.07
(Raudenbush, Bryk, Cheong, & Congdon, 2004), which provides independent
estimates of the associations among constructs at level 1 (within persons) and
models them at level 2 (between persons) using maximum likelihood estima-
tion. All significance tests were based on robust standard errors. In the level 1
model, daily wellbeing variables were predicted by daily social distancing and
an error term, allowing for an estimate of within-person effects of social dis-
tancing on daily wellbeing. Daily social distancing was group-centered (cen-
tered around an individual’s mean) so that the effects could be interpreted as
changes in the outcome variable associated with changes from an individual’s
average level of social distancing over the three days. Additionally, because
the daily social distancing variable was person-centered at Level 1, a mean
social distancing score for each person (averaged over the three diary days)
was also computed and entered (grand mean centered) at Level 2 predicting
the Level 1 intercepts, as recommended by Raudenbush and Bryk (2002). The
HLM model is specified below.
Within-person effects (level 1 model)
Today’s wellbeing ¼b0jþb1jToday’s level of social distancing
ðÞ
þeij
Between-person effects (level 2 model)
b0¼c00 þc01 Mean social distancing
ðÞ
þt0j,
b1¼c10 þt1j:
THE JOURNAL OF GENERAL PSYCHOLOGY 9
Results from the multilevel analyses specified above are all summarized in
Table 1. In the text below only the associations between daily social dis-
tancing and daily outcomes are described, as these are the findings of inter-
est from the models.
Daily measures of general psychological well-being
Daily mood
Analyses revealed a significant association between daily social distancing and
general mood, b¼.14, p<.001, f
2
¼.04, 95% CI [.07, .21]. Participants
reported a less positive mood on days when they practiced more social dis-
tancing compared to days when they practiced less social distancing.
Additionally, a more focused investigation of the two mood items that dir-
ectly assessed feelings of interpersonal connection to others (feeling detached
from others and feeling loved/valued) revealed that participants were in fact
feeling more detached from others, b¼.23, p¼.008 and less loved/valued, b
¼.18, p¼.006, on days when they socially distanced.
Daily stress appraisals
Appraisals of efficacy. Analyses revealed a significant association between
daily social distancing and appraisals of efficacy, b¼.13, p¼.02, f
2
¼
.06, 95% CI [.01, .249]. Participants reported feeling less efficacious in
terms of managing stress on days when they practiced more social distanc-
ing compared to days when they practiced less social distancing.
Appraisals of helplessness. Analyses revealed no association between daily
social distancing and appraisals of helplessness, b¼.01, p¼.86.
Participants’feelings of helpless in their management of stress did not dif-
fer depending on whether they had practiced more or less social distancing
on a given day.
Overall ratings of one’s day
Analyses revealed a significant association between daily social distancing and
overall ratings of one’s day, b¼.22, p¼.005, f
2
¼.14, 95% CI [.07, .37].
Participants rated their day more poorly on days when they practiced more
social distancing compared to days when they practiced less social distancing.
Daily measures of social/interpersonal wellbeing and connection with others
Daily perceptions of social support
Analyses revealed a significant association between daily social distancing
and overall perceptions of support from others, b¼.11, p¼.024,
10 M. B. FORD
Table 1. Estimated ccoefficients predicting daily psychological wellbeing, interpersonal wellbeing and physical health.
Psychological wellbeing Interpersonal wellbeing and connection Health behaviors and physical symptoms
Coefficient Mood
Appraisals
of efficacy
Appraisals of
helpless-ness
Ratings of
one’s day Social support
Use of tech
to connect
Minutes using
tech to connect
Daily health
behaviors
Minutes
engaged in
healthy
activities
Daily
physical
illness
symptoms
Intercept (c
00
) 3.27 3.16 3.22 4.59 3.76 3.44 147.12 2.35 85.44 1.29
Mean daily social
distancing (c
01
)
.01 .06 .07 .21†.02 .08 .07 .1954.05 .04
Daily social
distancing (c
10
)
.14 .13.01 .22 .11.1723.84.16 .43.84 .05
Note. All coefficients are unstandardized multilevel regression coefficients.
†p.10, p.05, p.01, p.001.
THE JOURNAL OF GENERAL PSYCHOLOGY 11
f
2
¼.02, 95% CI [.02, .21]. Participants reported lower levels of social
support from others on days when they practiced more social distancing
compared to days when they practiced less social distancing.
Daily use of technology to connect
Analyses revealed a significant association between daily social distancing
and use of technology to connect with others, b¼.17, p¼.042, f
2
¼
.01, 95% CI [.01, .33]. Participants were less likely to use technology to
connect with others on days when they practiced more social distancing
compared to days when they practiced less social distancing.
Analyses also revealed a significant association between daily social dis-
tancing and minutes spent using technology to connect with others, b¼
23.84, p¼.032, f
2
¼.04, 95% CI [2.06, 45.62]. Participants spent
fewer minutes using technology to connect with others on days when they
practiced more social distancing compared to days when they practiced less
social distancing.
Daily health behaviors and physical illness symptoms
Daily health behaviors
Analyses revealed a significant association between daily social distancing
and reported daily health behaviors, b¼.16, p¼.001, f
2
¼.10, 95% CI
[.06, .26]. Participants were less likely to engage in healthy behaviors on
days when they practiced more social distancing compared to days when
they practiced less social distancing.
Analyses also revealed a significant association between daily social dis-
tancing and minutes spent engaged in healthy behaviors, b¼43.84, p<
.001, f
2
¼.47, 95% CI [27.31, 60.37]. Participants spent fewer minutes
engaged in healthy behaviors on days when they practiced more social dis-
tancing compared to days when they practiced less social distancing.
Daily physical illness symptoms
Analyses revealed a significant association between daily social distancing
and reported daily physical illness symptoms, b¼.05, p¼.042, f
2
¼.05,
95% CI [.002, .10]. Participants reported more physical illness symptoms
on days when they practiced more social distancing compared to days
when they practiced less social distancing.
Discussion
The primary goal of the current study was to investigate the consequences
of social isolation/disconnection due to the COVID-19 pandemic on
12 M. B. FORD
psychological and interpersonal wellbeing as well as health. The findings
revealed that social disconnection was associated with significant within-
person declines in psychological/mental wellbeing. Specifically, on days
when people practiced more social distancing, they reported significant
decreases in mood, decreases in appraisals of their own efficacy in dealing
with daily stress and decreases in their overall ratings of their day.
Contrary to expectations, they did not show increases in appraisals of help-
lessness. This may have been because they were feeling generally elevated
and stable levels of helplessness (regardless of level of social distancing)
during the early weeks of the pandemic. Perhaps even social connection
was not enough to mitigate helplessness in the case of such a novel, uncer-
tain, and life-altering situation. The overall pattern of findings still clearly
suggests that social disconnection was associated with decrements in psy-
chological wellbeing. Social disconnection was also associated with signifi-
cant within-person declines in social/interpersonal wellbeing and
connection with others. On days when people practiced more social dis-
tancing, they reported significant decreases in perceptions of social support,
as well as decreased use of technology in order to connect with others.
Thus, they indicated a tendency to withdraw even from safe (technology-
mediated) interpersonal interactions at a time when support from others
might have been beneficial, given the reductions in psychological wellbeing
that they were concurrently experiencing. Finally, findings also revealed
that social disconnection was associated with significant within-person
declines in health behaviors and increased physical illness symptoms. On
days when people practiced more social distancing they reported signifi-
cantly decreased engagement in healthy behaviors such as exercising, eating
healthfully, and practicing spirituality (e.g., meditation, prayer, gratitude)
and they reported more stress-related physical illness symptoms. Taken
together, these findings illuminate some of the harmful effects of social dis-
tancing due to the COVID-19 pandemic. These findings replicate evidence
that the social distancing due to the COVID-19 pandemic may be associ-
ated with reduced mental health (Folk et al., 2020; Luchetti et al., 2020;
Tull et al., 2020; Marroqu
ın et al., 2020) and extend existing findings by
investigating a broader set of mental health outcomes. Additionally, these
findings extend research by identifying negative interpersonal/social and
physical health outcomes associated with social distancing. It is clear that
as long as the spread of COVID-19 is still a threat, social distancing is
clearly necessary but there are also costs that must be mitigated. In recent
years researchers have called for better integration of issues related to social
connection into public health priorities (Holt-Lunstad et al., 2017). The
findings presented here underscore the pressing importance of prioritizing
social connection issues sooner rather than later.
THE JOURNAL OF GENERAL PSYCHOLOGY 13
These findings also provide further evidence for the deeply hardwired
nature of our fundamental need for inclusion. Despite the fact that the
social disconnection, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, may not
threaten one’s sense of one’s relational value as much as many other sour-
ces of social disconnection (e.g., interpersonal rejection, ostracism), it still
triggers a cascade of negative psychological, social, and health-related
responses. In fact, in support of the idea that the nature of the social dis-
connection due to COVID-19 would not acutely affect one’s sense of rela-
tional value, social self-esteem was also assessed in this study as a variable
of secondary interest and there were no associations between daily social
distancing and changes in social self-esteem. Nonetheless, even in the
absence of a reduction in relational value, social disconnection was still sig-
nificantly associated with decrements in health and wellbeing. Why might
this be the case? Overall participants in this study were quite careful about
adhering to social distancing guidelines, as indicated by the mean score on
the social distancing variable. Although this is an effective means of limit-
ing viral transmission it does not serve to promote wellbeing in a
species that thrives in the context of social connection (Baumeister &
Leary, 1995; Bowlby, 1982). Despite the fact that most of the participants
in this study were not truly alone (97.4% were living in a household with
at least one other person) their social circles and their number of social
connections had drastically constricted due to COVID-related restrictions,
leaving them with a sense of deficit with regard to social connection.
Evidence for this is indicated by participants’general self-reports of fewer
interactions with others and lower quality interactions since the social dis-
tancing restrictions were put in place. On their high social distancing days,
these feelings of disconnection would be magnified as their interactions
would be further reduced. In fact, more fine-grained analyses looking at
individual items from the larger mood scale, that reflected feelings of dis-
connection, support this claim. As mentioned previously, these follow-up
analyses indicated that on high social distancing days participants reported
significantly increased feelings of detachment and decreased feelings of
being loved/valued. Additionally, findings presented on social support
revealed that participants were less likely to feel that their needs for support
were met on their high social distancing days. Thus it is reasonable to con-
clude that even though participants were not completely alone, they were
experiencing feelings related to a sense of loneliness or disconnection,
stemming from decreased number of social interactions as well as reduced
quality. Restrictions due to the pandemic had caused their social world to
constrict and this deficit may have been significant enough to trigger
the negative psychological, social, and health-related responses
reported here.
14 M. B. FORD
Given the decrements in health and wellbeing associated with social dis-
tancing, it is important to consider how we might mitigate the harm of the
social disconnection due to the COVID-19 pandemic. One simple way to
potentially minimize the impact of social distancing would be to change the
terminology we use. Researchers (Aminnejad & Alikhani, 2020; Saltzman
et al., 2020) as well as the World Health Organization (Kaur, 2020)have
criticized the use of the term social distancing, as it contributes to the per-
ception that people should socially isolate themselves, rather than focusing
on physical distancing. They suggest replacing the term social distancing with
physical distancing. Although subtle, given the documented effects of lan-
guage on perception, thought, and behavior (Lupyan & Clark, 2015)this
change in terminology may be meaningful, especially if combined with edu-
cation on the importance of safe (perhaps technology-mediated) social inter-
action, in the context of continued physical distancing. In this paper, the
term social distancing is used, only because that is the commonly-used term.
However, the measure of distancing used in this study was really designed to
assess more of a physical distancing (i.e., following recommendations to
reduce viral spread). It is important to note that in the current study, on
days when participants engaged in more physical distancing they also
reported more social distancing (i.e., they restricted both social and physical
interaction). This provides further evidence for the idea that social and phys-
ical distancing are being conflated. There are two likely reasons for this.
First, physical distancing naturally leads to some social distancing (or social
constriction) because by staying home an individual naturally limits opportu-
nities for interaction. For example, a university student who is following dis-
tancing guidelines will miss out on many spontaneous and unplanned
interactions that are a typical part of college social life. They will not
encounter friends as they walk cross campus, or catch up with one of
their professors as they happen to pass by the professor’s office, or see a
classmate in the gym and engage in a quick chat. Theory and research on
self-expansion (Aron, Lewandowski, Mashek, & Aron, 2013)suggestthat
these varied and novel interactions may contribute to self-growth and can be
important for happiness and wellbeing. Under conditions of physical distanc-
ing, there are fewer social interactions and those that do occur typically require
intentionality and motivation. For instance, rather than passing friends on a
walk across campus, an individual will have to actively reach out to them, and
most individuals will only engage in this more effortful interaction with a small
group of close others. Second, physical distancing may have also led to broader
social distancing by suppressing participants’general motivation to reach out
to others. Although this seems counterintuitive, researchers have documented
a tendency for those who are experiencing social disconnection to engage in
self-protective social withdrawal, which further limits opportunities for
THE JOURNAL OF GENERAL PSYCHOLOGY 15
connection (Cacioppo et al., 2006). It is clear from the data presented that on
days when participants closely followed distancing guidelines they also
reported reductions in feelings of social connection and this may have led to
further withdrawal (even from safe technology-mediated contact). Finally, it is
possible that participants in the current study did not find safe, technology-
mediated interaction to be an adequate replacement for face-to-face social
interaction. In fact, in the current investigation supplemental follow-up
analyses were conducted to determine whether the use of technology for
social connection (regardless of level of distancing) was associated with
increased positive mood. Findings indicated that even when participants
engaged in technology use for the purposes of social connection they did
not experience a boost in mood. Additionally, a recent study that employed
an event-sampling methodology, found that participants reported more
satisfaction during face-to-face (versus computer mediated) interactions
(Kafetsios, Chatzakou, Tsigilis, & Vakali, 2017). Thus, it is possible that
participants did not find computer-mediated interaction to be an adequate sub-
stitute for face-to-face interactions and this may help explain why they did not
employ technology to maintain social connection on their high distanc-
ing days.
How might we mitigate the harm of social disconnection due to the
COVID-19 pandemic, beyond simply changing terminology? We can cer-
tainly look to evidence-based interventions that have been proven effect-
ive in treating loneliness and other forms of social disconnection (Masi,
Chen, Hawkley, & Cacioppo, 2011). Some interventions that may be espe-
cially relevant in this context include (1) increasing opportunities for
social connection through the use of technology (2) encouraging individu-
als to reach out to their support networks and to accept help, (3)
addressing maladaptive social cognitions that might interfere with effective
coping or that might lead to decrements in psychological and physical
wellbeing, and (4) encouraging behaviors that will serve to boost mental
and physical wellbeing (e.g., exercise). Future investigations should test
the effectiveness of specific interventions in the context of the COVID-
19 pandemic.
It should be noted that the current investigation does not provide an
exhaustive analysis of all factors that might contribute to decrements in
health/wellbeing as the result of the pandemic. Researchers should investigate
additional factors that may have contributed to reduced health/wellbeing and
search for ways to mitigate the effects of these factors on health and well-
being. These include fear of contracting COVID, anxiety related to the scar-
city of resources due to the pandemic, anxiety due to the uncertain timeline
of the pandemic, increased exposure to distressing content on the news and
in other media, disruption of routine, as well as financial difficulties.
16 M. B. FORD
Limitations and future directions
Some limitations of this study must be noted. First, because daily social dis-
connection was not manipulated, unqualified causal inferences cannot be
drawn and the possibility that unmeasured third variables may explain some
of the effects reported cannot be ruled out. However, many experimental
studies provide evidence for the causal effect of social disconnection on
adverse outcomes in a laboratory setting. It is clearly unethical to manipulate
chronic social isolation/disconnection in research participants. However,
researchers can carefully manipulate certain aspects of the social situation in
a laboratory setting to create a temporary experience of social disconnection.
For example, researchers have effectively manipulated participants’sense of
social disconnection by having them engage in immersive tasks such as writ-
ing in depth about a past rejection experience or imagining a future where
they will be alone (DeWall & Baumeister, 2006). Researchers have also
manipulated social information, such as delivering false feedback indicating
that a participant has been rejected by another participant (Ford & Collins,
2017)orbyagroupofotherparticipants(Buckley,Winkel,&Leary,2004;
Rudert, Hales, Greifeneder, & Williams, 2017). These experimental methodol-
ogies clearly do not fully create the experience of real life social disconnec-
tion. However, they allow us to create situations that share similarities with
real life social disconnection, in a way that minimizes risk to research partici-
pants. These studies, together with investigations of real life social disconnec-
tion can help us determine likely causal pathways in the association between
social disconnection and health and wellbeing.
A second limitation of the current study is that the sample of partici-
pants recruited for this study was relatively young, with a mean age of 20
and an age range from 18 to 36 years. This is an important group to study,
as peer connection is highly important to adolescents and young adults
(Brown & Larson, 2009) and peer connections are clearly significantly dis-
rupted when individuals are forced to distance themselves from peers.
However, it is possible that social disconnection affects people of different
ages in distinct ways and we should be careful about generalizing these
findings to adults of all ages. Future work should investigate possible age-
related differences in responses to social disconnection due to COVID-19.
Also, most effect sizes reported here were small to medium, with the
exception of time spent engaging in healthful behaviors, which was a large
effect according to guidelines set forth by Cohen (1988). Given the import-
ance of the variables investigated here for health and wellbeing these are
still meaningful effects and the daily fluctuations seen here may have larger
cumulative effects over time, as discussed below.
It should also be noted that this study only offers a snapshot of partici-
pants’experiences with social disconnection due to the COVID-19
THE JOURNAL OF GENERAL PSYCHOLOGY 17
pandemic over a 3-day period. Thus, the findings reported here represent
short-term consequences of social disconnection. Findings from other stud-
ies conducted on smaller disease outbreaks suggest that the effects of social
disconnection may linger (Jeong et al., 2016). It will be important to con-
tinue to investigate the impact of social disconnection on psychological and
interpersonal wellbeing as well as physical health as the COVID-19 pan-
demic continues. Research conducted to investigate outcomes during the
first 6 months of the pandemic has identified an increase in loneliness for
those under stay-at-home orders, and this increased loneliness has been
associated with depression and suicidal ideation (Killgore, Cloonan, Taylor,
Lucas, & Dailey, 2020). Other researchers have linked distancing due to the
pandemic to increases in mental health conditions (Marroqu
ın et al., 2020).
As the months stretch on it is likely that the negative effects of this pan-
demic on mental health and wellbeing will accumulate. Additionally, people
may experience additional decrements in health and wellbeing (beyond
those measured here) that are associated with experiences of chronic dis-
connection, such as dysregulated sleep (Cacioppo et al., 2002), decreased
cognitive regulation (Cacioppo & Hawkley, 2009), and even an increased
risk of premature mortality (Holt-Lunstad, Smith, & Layton, 2010).
Researchers should continue to investigate the effects of social distancing
due to the pandemic with a focus on the cumulative impact.
Additionally, it is reasonable to expect that there will be variation with
regard to how well individuals cope with the social disconnection as a result
of the pandemic. It will be important to identify individual differences that
predict this variation. For example, those with low self-esteem have more dif-
ficulty coping with social disconnection (Ford, 2017; Ford & Collins, 2010,
2013,2015) and these individuals may be faring more poorly during this pan-
demic. It will also be important to investigate the impact of the pandemic on
different racial/ethnic groups. Evidence suggests that those in marginalized
racial/ethnic groups may be more likely to contract COVID-19 and to experi-
ence complications and even death (Webb Hooper, N
apoles, & P
erez-Stable,
2020). Because the pandemic serves as a greater threat to these groups this
may affect their social distancing behaviors and subsequent psychological,
interpersonal and health-related outcomes. Unfortunately the limited racial/
ethnic diversity of individuals in the current study limited our power for
investigating racial/ethnic differences.
Conclusion
The current study extends research on social disconnection and health/well-
being by investigating responses to daily social disconnection in the context of
the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings reveal that social disconnection due to
social distancing measures is associated with reduced psychological, social, and
18 M. B. FORD
physical health and wellbeing. Given the vast number of people affected by
social distancing measures due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it is difficult to
overstate the possible impact that these distancing measures may have on
health and wellbeing worldwide in the days, weeks, and months to come.
These social distancing measures are necessary for controlling the spread of the
virus yet they are also costly, and it will be important to focus efforts on finding
ways to mitigate their detrimental effects.
Notes
1. Given the time sensitive nature of this data collection, rather than basing the sample size
on a power analysis, the sample for this study was simply based on recruiting the
maximum number of participants possible over the time span that data was being collected.
2. The reliability was somewhat low on this variable. This is likely due to the fact that
participants who were engaging in healthier behaviors on a given day were not
necessarily all engaging in the same pattern of healthy behaviors (e.g., some may have
been eating more healthfully and spending time outside, whereas others were spending
time doing something spiritual and exercising). Nonetheless, higher scores on the
composite variable still indicated higher levels of engagement in healthy behaviors.
Additionally, I ran all analyses on the individual health items and found that they all
individually reached significance and in the predicted direction. However, in an effort
to be concise I report them here in terms of the larger composite variable.
Acknowledgments
The author gratefully acknowledges the efforts of Brianna Absalon, Maxine Boyd, Halley
Jeanne Dante, and Gavriella Rubin who assisted with this project.
Funding
Support for this project was provided by a Summer Undergraduate Research Project Grant
from Loyola Marymount University.
ORCID
M
aire B. Ford http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5640-6566
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