UCR: Statistical Analysis of Social, Psychological Impact during COVID-19

About the Project

The data for this project was collected via computer or mobile device on Qualtrics or by a researcher who assisted participants in completing the survey over the phone during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic (June 12th, 2020 to July 17th, 2020). The survey resulted in two datasets. The first dataset consists of 462 participants with measurements that include intervention, age, age group (young, middle aged, older), education, sex, and growth mindset. The outcomes of interest are adjustment (measured as 1 or 0 where 1 indicates adapting to challenges of COVID-19 and 0 indicates not adapting), depression (scale of 1-10; higher values indicate higher levels of depression), and well-being (scale of 1-7; higher number indicates higher levels of well-being). The second dataset contains 402 participants with features including age, sex, income, race, emotional closeness (to people living in their household), learning behavior (time spent learning), and new skill tolerable (engaging in new skills amid social restrictions). The outcomes of interest were depression (scale of 1-100), well-being (scale of 1-7), and loneliness (scale of 20-140). The goal of this project is to address the following questions based on survey data: 1) How and to what extent people are staying socially connected despite physical distancing, and describe how different demographic groups (e.g. age, gender, income) are doing so, and 2) Evaluate how learning and adaptive behaviors and personal beliefs about age/abilities predict successful social connectivity, higher subjective well-being, and lower levels of isolation and loneliness during the pandemic.