Survey to study dating, self-esteem in pandemic
HALIFAX — A Saint Mary's University researcher wants to know how you are doing it in the time of COVID-19.
Dealing with dating and self-esteem, that is.
Maryanne Fisher, a researcher and professor in SMU'S psychology department, and an affiliate faculty member at the Kinsey Institute in Bloomington, Ind., an international sex and gender research centre, has created a survey to see how people feel about themselves in terms of dating and romantic relationships.
“I just think it's such an interesting time,” Fisher said in a telephone interview on Thursday. “I guess this is a research project I feel very enthusiastic about because it's telling us something very unique about human behaviour. We've never had — at least for centuries — a situation where we've had such a huge number of people in a lockdown situation that was international. So it's going to be really interesting to see how that plays out in our social lives.”
The survey will also ask for thoughts on sexuality, sexual partners and how people feel about themselves.
“What I'm also interested in is how have people changed the value they assign to themselves as potential dates or as spouses in relation to the coronavirus,” Fisher said. “So are they thinking 'oh, you know, I would make a great long-term partner to somebody,' and then the coronavirus happens and they realize 'oh, geez, I don't have a lot of skills to really attract somebody for a long-term relationshup, I better develop that.'”
As well as this self-reflection, it will also touch on how much you're spending on enhancing your appearance or using the time to either increase or respond to a feeling of decrease in selfesteem, she said.
Researchers want to get responses from a broad spectrum of people. Participants will be asked if they want to answer questions that pertain to opposite sex others or same-sex others.
“We really went out of our way to try to make it a flexible and dynamic a survey that way,” Fisher said. “So we would have a lot of gender categories, a lot of sexual orientation categories, but the bottom line is that we ask people what kind of surveys they want to answer.”
They are limiting it to people 19 and over.
“But it can be anyone: it can be people who are married, people who have polyamorous relationships, it could be people who are single and have never wanted to date — it can be pretty much anyone.”
The survey is live now and about 700 have already completed it as of Thursday. It takes about 20 minutes to complete.
Fisher does want it done while there are some restrictions still in place so people have the sense that isolation is still happening, but she also plans on leaving it open for six months in case the predicted second wave does hit.
“But also, as restrictions ease off, what happens with people's views about dating and self-esteem. Are we seeing a huge influx of short-term sexual relationships, or are we seeing that sort of self-reflection and more companionate love actually echoing through now that restrictions are easing off? That's ultimately what I'm interested in looking at.”