Risk perception and optimism during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Benjamin J Kuper-Smith,Christoph W Korn,Yulia Oganian,Lisa M Doppelhofer,Gabriela Rosenblau

doi:10.1098/rsos.210904

Abstract

Slowing the spread of COVID-19 requires people to actively change their lives by following protective practices, such as physical distancing and disinfecting their hands. Perceptions about the personal risk of COVID-19 may affect compliance with these practices. In this study, we assessed risk perception and optimism about COVID-19 in a multinational (UK, USA and Germany), longitudinal design during the early stages of the pandemic (16 March 2020; 1 April 2020; 20 May 2020). Our main findings are that (i) people showed a comparative optimism bias about getting infected and infecting others, but not for getting severe symptoms, (ii) this optimism bias did not change over time, (iii) optimism bias seemed to relate to perceived level of control over the action, (iv) risk perception was linked to publicly available information about the disorder, (v) people reported adhering closely to protective measures but these measures did not seem to be related to risk perception, and (vi) risk perception was related to questions about stress and anxiety. In additional cross-sectional samples, we replicated our most important findings. Our open and partly preregistered results provide detailed descriptions of risk perceptions and optimistic beliefs during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in three Western countries.

Highlights

The pandemic of the new Coronavirus COVID-19 requires massive action from governments, industry and citizens to reduce its spread
Applied to the current situation, individuals might believe that they are less likely to get infected and to infect others with COVID-19 [11]. Such optimism may extend to subjective beliefs about following best practice guidelines: if people believe they are not as likely to get infected as other people, they might believe that implementing best practices to minimize the risk of COVID-19 is not as necessary for themselves compared with others
COVID-19 adds another complication for accurately estimating personal risk: especially in the beginning of the pandemic, individuals had no access to definitive statistics due to the novelty of this disease—in contrast to other diseases, such as influenza or sexually transmitted diseases, for which reliable statistics have been long established and publicly available

Summary

Introduction

The pandemic of the new Coronavirus COVID-19 requires massive action from governments, industry and citizens to reduce its spread Best practices, such as minimizing direct physical contact with others ( physical distancing) and increased personal hygiene require individuals to actively change their lifestyles [1]. Self-related subjective beliefs about future events tend to be optimistically biased [5,6,7,8]: people estimate that negative events are less likely to happen to them than to a similar other person, while the opposite is true for positive events This phenomenon is conceptualized as comparative optimism bias [9,10]. The COVID-19 pandemic evolved rapidly, which changed personal experience as well as publicly available information and public policies

Methods

Results

Conclusion