Across the two years of the COVID-19 era, daily life adapted to new norms: masks, hand sanitizers, and social caution. Yet researchers from a Madrid university and their networks observed a troubling pattern. People tended to lower their guard around close friends and family, believing these intimate circles would shield them from infection. Their findings appeared in a peer discourse on human behavior and health risk, highlighting how familiarity can quietly erode caution in real-world settings.
The study notes a clear message about protection: while close relationships offer comfort, they do not guarantee safety from COVID-19. The researchers describe a phenomenon they call the friend shield effect—a tendency to feel safer with people we know well, which can inadvertently fuel risky choices and higher infection odds in the long run.
Across several online experiments conducted with U.S. participants, the team explored how social proximity shapes decision making around health actions. In one setup, about 495 people were asked to write about a very close friend in one group and a distant acquaintance in another. Afterward, all participants read a brief article about how unhealthy snacking could worsen COVID-19 outcomes and how protective measures like masks, antiseptics, and disinfectants lower the risk of infection. Then they selected snacks and health-protective products from an online store. Those who wrote about a close friend tended to choose junk food more often than protective items, compared with those who wrote about a distant contact.—a striking sign that emotional closeness can dampen risk awareness and shift behavior toward immediate gratification over safety.
In a second experiment, 262 adults without active disease were split into three groups. Each group imagined a different type of contact—a friend, an acquaintance, or a stranger—who had contracted COVID-19. Participants then estimated how much they would spend on health products over the next two months. Those who pictured a friend or a stranger as infected indicated a higher likelihood of spending on protective gear, reflecting a heightened perceived risk when infection was imagined in a social context, even as the actual risk profile varied by scenario.
A third study involved 109 participants who had previously recovered from COVID-19 and knew where their infection came from. Those who had contracted the virus through friends or family members reported a lower perceived risk of future infection compared with those whose past exposure came from acquaintances or strangers. This underlines how personal history with infection within tight social groups can shape present risk judgments and behaviors.
The fourth experiment asked 176 volunteers to imagine a scenario during a pandemic where a friend or an acquaintance invited them to dine at a cafe. They rated how close they felt to the inviter on a seven-point scale and then stated their willingness to accept the lunch invitation. The researchers also provided concise definitions of what counts as a close friend versus an ordinary acquaintance and asked participants to categorize their social ties accordingly. Those who found it easier to draw a clear boundary between friend and acquaintance were more inclined to accept an invitation from a friend, while those who struggled with categorization showed less influence of friendship on health-risk choices.
A final study with 301 participants explored how people perceive crowdedness and risk when imagining going to a cafe alone with a friend or an acquaintance. The analysis revealed that political views played a role in risk perception and social behavior. Conservatives tended to foresee a less crowded setting and a lower infection risk when a friend accompanied them. No corresponding pattern appeared among liberal respondents, suggesting that political identity can shape how people interpret social scenarios and risk signals in pandemic contexts.
Based on the broader pattern across these experiments, the researchers emphasize that public health campaigns should address the friend shield effect directly. Messages aimed at reducing risky behavior must consider both objective safety indicators and the psychological perception of risk within personal networks. The findings also point to the importance of recognizing how social dynamics and identity—such as political orientation—can influence how individuals respond to health guidance in real-world scenarios.
In closing, the study argues that infection risk remains real even within close relationships. Closer contact without proper precautions can raise the chance of transmission, and health campaigns should balance urging caution with understanding the social contexts in which people live. The goal is to foster safer habits across diverse communities, including those in Canada and the United States, by addressing both the tangible factors of infection and the perceptual biases that emerge from everyday social life.
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