COVID-Dynamic: A large-scale multifaceted longitudinal study of socioemotional and behavioral change across the pandemic

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused massive societal upheaval around the world. In the US, with 20% of global COVID-19 cases, the pandemic has also triggered a substantial economic shock and laid bare societal inequities. The extreme and highly volatile nature of this time period affords a unique opportunity to elucidate the dynamics of psychosocial processes. In April of 2020, we launched the pre-registered COVID-Dynamic longitudinal study to capture 1000+ US residents’ personal and collective experiences related to the pandemic and to characterize psychological, emotional, attitudinal, and behavioral change. Participants completed a longitudinal, hour-long battery of psychological measures, including assessments of racial, political, social, moral, COVID-19-related attitudes and behaviors, and experimental tasks. Here we describe the ongoing study and provide a detailed assessment of data quality for the first 8 Waves (April to June). The remaining data will be published when data collection, which extends into 2021, has ended.