Effects Of Fear Of Covid-19 On Attitude Towards Social Distancing Among College Students

Abstract

Nowadays, individuals are experiencing a covid-19 pandemic situation. In this regard, the government has been making a lot of attempts to reduce the spread of this virus. Social distance is considered to be one of the significant strategies to reduce the spread of this virus. The attitude towards the social distancing refers to the tendency to reduce the frequency and closeness of the interaction between individuals in order to safeguard themselves from the threatening environment. This study made an attempt to find out the significant effects of fear of Covid-19 on attitude towards social distancing and emotion regulation among college students. About 280 college students participated in this study. A simple random sampling method was used in the data collection process. The ‘Structural Equation Modelling’ (SEM) was carried out in the assumed path model. The results show that there was a significant positive total effect of fear of Covid-19 on expressive suppression strategy of emotional regulation and significant negative effect on negative social distancing attitude among undergraduate students. Other findings and discussion were presented in detail in this article.