In an effort to combat COVID-19 and future pandemics, researchers have attempted to identify the factors underlying social distancing. Yet, much of this research relies on self-report measures. In two studies, we examine whether self-reported social distancing predicts objective distancing behavior. In Study 1, individuals’ self-reported social distancing predicted decreased mobility (assessed via smartphone step counts) during the COVID-19 pandemic. While participants high in self-reported distancing (+1 SD) exhibited a 33% reduction in daily step counts, those low in distancing (−1 SD) exhibited only a 3% reduction. Study 2 extended these findings to the group level. Self-reported social distancing at the U.S. state level accounted for 20% of the variance in states’ objective reduction in overall movement and visiting nonessential services (calculated via the GPS coordinates of ∼15 million people). Collectively, our results indicate that self-reported social distancing tracks actual social distancing behavior.

为了对抗 COVID-19 和未来的流行病，研究人员试图确定社会疏远的潜在因素。然而，大部分研究依赖于自我报告措施。在两项研究中，我们研究了自我报告的社会疏远是否能预测客观的疏远行为。在研究 1 中，个人自我报告的社交距离预测了 COVID-19 大流行期间行动能力的降低（通过智能手机步数评估）。虽然自我报告的距离高 (+1 SD ) 的参与者每日步数减少了 33%，但那些低距离 (-1 SD)) 仅减少了 3%。研究 2 将这些发现扩展到组级别。美国各州自我报告的社会疏远占各州客观减少总体活动和访问非必要服务（通过约 1500 万人的 GPS 坐标计算）差异的 20%。总的来说，我们的结果表明，自我报告的社交距离会追踪实际的社交距离行为。