Emotional reactivity and decision-making under social deprivation: the role of trait anxiety during quarantine
- 1Department of Psychology, University of Southern California 1 , Los Angeles, CA, USA
- 2Department of Biological Sciences and Bioengineering, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur 2 , Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India
Abstract
Social isolation measures enforced during the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the importance of the social environment in shaping affective states and decision-making. However, the day-to-day experience and psychological recovery from social deprivation, especially among individuals with high trait anxiety, remains poorly understood. We conducted a 10-day longitudinal study with 116 university students returning to campus, collecting approximately 31 000 momentary assessments of affect and social interactions during a 3-day quarantine and subsequent period. Quarantine increased the need for social interaction and altered patterns of social engagement, whereas trait anxiety was robustly associated with reduced positive affect and elevated negative affect. Close interactions following quarantine were associated with higher positive affect. We also administered a virtual patch-foraging task to participants during and after quarantine. Greater variability in negative affect was associated with lower patch exit thresholds, suggesting a tendency to persist in depleted patches. These findings highlight how trait anxiety shapes emotional experience and social behaviour in daily life and reveal how fluctuations in negative affect can influence sequential decision-making under uncertainty.
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BibTeX
@article{avisha2026emotional,
title = {{Emotional reactivity and decision-making under social deprivation: the role of trait anxiety during quarantine}},
author = {Avisha and Akhilesh Tayade and Arjun Ramakrishnan},
journal = {Royal Society Open Science},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.1098/rsos.251773},
url = {https://royalsocietypublishing.org/rsos/article/13/10/251773/483642/Emotional-reactivity-and-decision-making-under},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Emotional reactivity and decision-making under social deprivation: the role of trait anxiety during quarantine
AU - Avisha
AU - Akhilesh Tayade
AU - Arjun Ramakrishnan
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/14
JO - Royal Society Open Science
DO - 10.1098/rsos.251773
UR - https://royalsocietypublishing.org/rsos/article/13/10/251773/483642/Emotional-reactivity-and-decision-making-under
AB - Social isolation measures enforced during the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the importance of the social environment in shaping affective states and decision-making. However, the day-to-day experience and psychological recovery from social deprivation, especially among individuals with high trait anxiety, remains poorly understood. We conducted a 10-day longitudinal study with 116 university students returning to campus, collecting approximately 31 000 momentary assessments of affect and social interactions during a 3-day quarantine and subsequent period. Quarantine increased the need for social interaction and altered patterns of social engagement, whereas trait anxiety was robustly associated with reduced positive affect and elevated negative affect. Close interactions following quarantine were associated with higher positive affect. We also administered a virtual patch-foraging task to participants during and after quarantine. Greater variability in negative affect was associated with lower patch exit thresholds, suggesting a tendency to persist in depleted patches. These findings highlight how trait anxiety shapes emotional experience and social behaviour in daily life and reveal how fluctuations in negative affect can influence sequential decision-making under uncertainty.
SN - 2054-5703
ER -