Social bonds are related to health behaviors and positive well-being globally

Bahar Tunçgenç; Valerie van Mulukom; Martha Newson

doi:10.1126/sciadv.add3715

Social bonds are related to health behaviors and positive well-being globally

Bahar Tunçgenç
, Valerie van Mulukom
, Martha Newson

Research Centre for Peace and Security

Nottingham Trent University
University of Kent
University of Oxford

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

44 Citations (Scopus)

344 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

At times of turmoil – such as during natural disasters, social crises, or pandemics – our social bonds can be key to receiving support and gaining certainty about the right course of action. In an analysis combining two global datasets (N= 13,264) collected during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, this study examined how social bonds with close social circles (i.e., family, friends) and extended groups (i.e., country, government, humanity) relate to engagement in health behaviours and psychological wellbeing. Results revealed that only family bonding was associated with self-reported engagement in health behaviours. Being strongly bonded with both close circles and extended groups predicted less anxiety and depression, and better wellbeing, particularly for those who were bonded with more groups. These findings highlight that close and extended social bonds offer different sources of support and direction during the most challenging of circumstances, and that continuous investment is needed to forge and maintain both.

Original language	English
Article number	eadd3715
Number of pages	9
Journal	Science advances
Volume	9
Issue number	2
Early online date	13 Jan 2023
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.add3715
Publication status	Published - 13 Jan 2023

Bibliographical note

Copyright © 2023 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (CC BY).

Funder

M.N. is funded by a UKRI Future Leader’s Fellowship grant (MR/T041099/1).

Funding

Acknowledgments Funding: M.N. is funded by a UKRI Future Leader\u2019s Fellowship grant (MR/T041099/1). Author contributions:Conceptualization:B.T ., M.N.,andV .v.M. Datacuration:B.T .andV .v.M. Formal analysis:B.T .Investiga tion: B.T ., M.N.,andV .v.M. Methodology:B.T ., M.N.,andV .v.M. Visualization:B.T .Writing(originaldraft):B.T ., M.N.,andV .v.M. Writing(reviewandediting):B.T ., M.N.,andV .v.M. Competinginterests:Theauthorsdeclarethattheyhav enocompeting interests.Dataandmaterialsavailability:Alldataneededtoevaluatetheconclusionsinthe paperarepresentinthepaperand/ortheSupplementaryMaterials.Alldataandanalysisscripts areavailableonOpenScienceFramework(https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF .IO/BGZUF). Preregistr ationsofbothdatasetsareavailableattheOpenScienceFramework(https://osf.io/ tsjnb/fordatasetA,andhttps://osf.io/ke5yn/fordatasetB.

Funders	Funder number
???publication-publication-funding-organisation-not-added???	MR/T041099/2
UK Research and Innovation	MR/T041099/1

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

SDG 3 Good Health and Well-being

Keywords

Social Bonding
Health behaviours
psychological wellbeing
Identity fusion

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Social Psychology

Access to Document

10.1126/sciadv.add3715Licence: CC BY

Tuncgenc et al_2023 - Social bonds are related to health behaviours and positive wellbeing globallyAccepted author manuscript, 1.74 MB
PublishedFinal published version, 1.35 MBLicence: CC BY

Cite this

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title = "Social bonds are related to health behaviors and positive well-being globally",

abstract = "At times of turmoil – such as during natural disasters, social crises, or pandemics – our social bonds can be key to receiving support and gaining certainty about the right course of action. In an analysis combining two global datasets (N= 13,264) collected during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, this study examined how social bonds with close social circles (i.e., family, friends) and extended groups (i.e., country, government, humanity) relate to engagement in health behaviours and psychological wellbeing. Results revealed that only family bonding was associated with self-reported engagement in health behaviours. Being strongly bonded with both close circles and extended groups predicted less anxiety and depression, and better wellbeing, particularly for those who were bonded with more groups. These findings highlight that close and extended social bonds offer different sources of support and direction during the most challenging of circumstances, and that continuous investment is needed to forge and maintain both.",

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AU - van Mulukom, Valerie

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Social bonds are related to health behaviors and positive well-being globally

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Funder

Funding

UN SDGs

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Access to Document

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Cite this