key: cord-1021941-bwtit080
authors: Moran, James B.; Miller, Travis J.
title: Goals and good health: Undergraduates' goals for avoiding COVID-19
date: 2021-12-15
journal: Pers Individ Dif
DOI: 10.1016/j.paid.2021.111452
sha: 31ee69c9a554df2e783a670f2ca562976e716c97
doc_id: 1021941
cord_uid: bwtit080

We observed COVID-19 concern during goal pursuit data collection, where some undergraduates self-reported COVID-19 specific goals. Thus, we analyzed the individual difference in students who self-reported COVID-19 specific goals in this current exploratory study. The results revealed (N = 496) that there were no differences in those who reported COVID-19 goals with their self-reporting of the Five-Factor Model. Additionally, participant's most reported goal was to 1) not contract COVID-19, 2) be social during COVID-19, and 3) follow health and safety protocols. This study provides researchers with both qualitative and quantitative evidence about college students' concern with COVID-19.

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, public health and government agencies encouraged individuals to engage in behaviors, such as wearing masks and social distancing, that would help avoid the contraction and transmission of COVID-19. Despite the urgent need to limit the spread of the disease, compliance with these recommendations was not universal (Travaglino & Moon, 2021) . One possible reason for this is that individuals may not have been properly motivated to engage in protective behaviors. This study explores the prevalence and nature of goals relating to the COVID-19 pandemic in a sample of college students and the relationship between having these goals and individual differences.

Individuals set goals towards desired outcomes (Karaskek & Theorell, 1992; Little et al., 2017) . Many methods have been developed to measure and describe individuals' motivations.

Among them are operant approaches that ask participants to provide a list of their own goals (e.g., Emmons, 1997; McClelland, 1980) . This list of goals can then be coded for themes (e.g., affiliation or achievement) or domains of interest (e.g., finance or health; Dunlop et al., 2017) .

Studying individuals' desires in this open-ended way allows for a thorough understanding of the individuals' lives and provides clear connections between these desires and the participants' motivations (Emmons, 1997) .

Motivations may stem a person's fundamental needs-a set of interactive goals that integrate a human's fundamental social motives (e.g., physiological, self-protection, affiliation), and these needs are activated and overlap with one another depending on with external forces at play . For instance, the environmental force of infectious disease can impact one's affiliation motive to ensure they are not transmitting disease to others in their environment. Thus, creating motivations and setting goals to minimize disease transmission is J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f Journal Pre-proof warranted. This evolved a motivated disease avoidance system, known as the behavioral immune system-a suite of psychological mechanisms associated with behavior and cognitive avoidant mechanism to minimize contracting a disease (Schaller, 2011) . For instance, the threat of disease has encouraged individuals to be less extraverted (Mortensen, et al., 2010) . In addition, the threat of COVID-19 increased support for travel bans and decreased people's desire for casual sex . This suggests that the threat of disease may activate a motivational state, leading an individual to set a goal to avoid getting sick (McCabe & Fleeson, 2016) .

The current exploratory study examined how undergraduates' goals reflected the ongoing pandemic. The purpose of this study was to investigate if undergraduates reported goals that focused on COVID-19 and if these types of pandemic-related goals could systematically be grouped to assess themes. We also aimed to understand if those who proposed COVID-19 goals differed across personality traits.

goal for if each of the Manifest Content categories were present, multiple categories could be present in one goal (for a list of Manifest Content categories see Table 1 ). For all categories, the two judges agreed on how it should be coded on 94% or more of the goals. Across categories, the judges did not agree on 19 goals, for these a third independent judge was brought in. Goals were considered to contain the Manifest Content if two judges agreed that they pertained to the that category.

In total 103 goals (1%) pertaining to the Coronavirus pandemic were identified, belonging to 91 of the 496 participants (18%). The majority (83) of the participants who reported having a Coronavirus goal had 1 goal, 5 participants listed two, 2 participants listed three and 1 participant listed 4 coronavirus goals. Table 1 presents the frequency of manifest content in Coronavirus goals. Most commonly participants stated the goal not to get the Coronavirus. Most goals (87) were best represented by one category, but 13 goals were represented by two categories and 3 goals by 3 categories (for example the goal: "do my part helping reduce the curve of COVID" was coded as a goal to Not get the Coronavirus, Support my community, and Follow health and safety protocols).

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