New York: Covid-19 not only affected health to a greater extent globally but also hampered relationships among married couples amid lockdowns and limited social interactions, a study has revealed. The study by researchers at University of California-Los Angeles, published in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, is the first to examine the pandemic-related loss of connections with family, friends and colleagues among diverse couples recruited from lower-income neighbourhoods.
Following the lockdowns and restrictions on public gatherings in the early days of Covid-19, the social networks of white, Black and Latino couples all shrank. But these networks shrank most significantly among lower-income and Latino and Black couples and didn't fully recover even after vaccines became available and the most severe restrictions were lifted.
"Limiting social interactions may well have reduced the spread of infection," said lead author Benjamin Haggerty, a doctoral student in the UCLA Marriage and Close Relationships Lab, "but this policy also had unexamined and potentially lasting social costs". Psychologists found that when the pandemic began, face-to-face interactions declined overall by 50 per cent, with little recovery over the next 18 months.
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