Combating the fear of COVID-19 through shared accommodations: Does perceived human presence create a sense of social connectedness?

Among other shared systems, sharing accommodations offer several social benefits. Although previous work has mainly focused on social means to fulfill connectedness needs, in this research, we demonstrate that such needs can be satisfied through symbolic means. As such, we explore how human presence (a sense of personalness and warmth of a human being) can be conveyed in shared accommodations through personalized decorative elements, without any actual human presence. Across four studies (two surveys and two experiments), this research reveals that imbuing shared accommodations with human presence dissipates the negative effect of the fear of contracting COVID-19 on staying likelihood. The findings offer important theoretical contributions to both sharing economy and social connectedness literature.