The Impact Of COVID-19 On College Students’ Romantic Intention

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to bring great changes to people’s lives,experts at home and abroad agree that the Corona virus will remain in place for a long time.With the normalization of epidemic prevention and control,its impact cannot be ignored.Healthy intimate relationships are of great significance to the physical and mental health of college students,so it is of great value to investigate the impact of COVID-19 on intimate relationships among college students.This study takes romantic intention as an indicator of college students’ intimate relationship dynamics.In study 1,questionnaires were used to explore the relationship between COVID-19 risk perception and romantic intention of college students.From the dual perspectives of terror management theory and behavioral immune system theory,study 2 further explored the mechanism and reasons of COVID-19 affecting college students’ romantic intention on the basis of study 1.Study 1 was a questionnaire study,which explored the relationship between risk perception of COVID-19 and fear of being single and romantic intention.The results showed that:(1)COVID-19 risk perception positively predicts fear of being single and romantic intention.(2)Fear of being single plays a complete mediating role in the impact of COVID-19 risk perception on college students’ romantic intentions.(3)Attachment has no effect on the impact of COVID-19 risk perception on college students’ romantic intention.Study 2 was a single-factor experiment design between subjects,and the independent variable was the treatment type,including mortality salience,contagion salience,& control group.It found that:(1)The romantic intention of the mortality salience group was lower than that of the control group.(2)There was no difference in romantic intention between the contagion salience group and the control group.Based on the above experimental results,the conclusions of this study are as follows:(1)COVID-19 risk perception positively affects romantic intention through fear of being single,and this relationship is not affected by attachment style.(2)The attachment type does not moderating the relationship between COVID-19 risk perception and college students’ romantic intention.(3)Mortality salience reduces the romantic intention of college students.(4)The contagion salience does not affect the romantic intention of college students.