Disease avoidance motives trade-off against social motives, especially mate-seeking, to predict social distancing: Evidence from the Covid-19 pandemic

Many studies have sought to understand why people’s compliance with social distancing varied during the Covid-19 pandemic. Recent theory suggests that pathogen avoidance behavior is not based only on perceived risk, but on a trade-off between the perceived costs of pathogen exposure and the perceived benefits of social contact. We hypothesized that compliance with social distancing may therefore be explained by a trade-off between pathogen avoidance and social motives, especially mate-seeking. Two studies conducted during the Covid-19 pandemic gave results consistent with this proposition: compliance with social distancing was positively associated with disease avoidance motives but negatively associated with social, especially mating, motives. These associations remained after controlling for predictors identified by previous research, including risk perception and personality. Findings indicate that people who are more interested in seeking new romantic partners (e.g., young men) may be less inclined to socially distance and be more at risk of pathogen transmission.