Social distancing between personal belongings during the COVID-19 pandemic [version 2; peer review: 1 approved with reservations, 1 not approved]

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has led to instructions and suggestions from governments and experts to maintain social (physical) distance between people to prevent aerosol transmission of the virus, which is now becoming the norm. Thus, we examined whether the pandemic extended the distance between personal belongings. Methods: We recruited 68 university students and instructed them to place their belongings on a long table following another participant (i.e., confederate). We measured the physical distance between the two belongings (i.e., the participant’s and the confederate’s). We collected data between June 10, 2022 and January 23, 2023. Pre-pandemic data was from Ariga (2016). Analysis was completed with one-tailed t-tests. Results: Compared with the pre-pandemic results, via one-tailed t-test, the distance between the two belongings during the pandemic was significantly longer. Our results supported the hypothesis that the psychological framework for processing people’s belongings has dramatically changed during this pandemic. Conclusion: This change may have been driven by social distancing practices or an increase in perceived vulnerability to disease. Our results provide new implications for future public spatial design, in other words, not only the distance between people, but also the distance between their belongings.