Affective States During the First Wave of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Progression of Intensity and Relation With Public Health Compliance Behavior

The COVID-19 pandemic was expected to cause intense affective reactions. This situation provided a unique opportunity to examine the characteristics and correlates of emotions in a real-world context with great significance. Our study aimed to describe the progression of positive and negative affective states during the pandemic, and to investigate which affective states predicted compliance with public health measures. We undertook a survey of affective states in the province of Quebec at the beginning, the peak, and the aftermath of the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. We recruited 530 responders; 154 responded to all three surveys. We used self-report scales to measure affective states and compliance with public health measures. We then computed separate linear regressions for the three phases of our study, with compliance with health measures as the dependent variable. Affective states were generally most intense at the beginning of the pandemic. Fear-related pandemic-related affective states reliably predicted compliance with public health measures in the three phases of our study. Positively valenced affective states related to the societal response also contributed predictive value, but only at the peak of the first wave.