Risk Perceptions, Health Attitudes, and Individual Differences During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Throughout the last several years, there have been varying responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. This study (N = 211) explored individual differences (i.e., health anxiety, education, and age) as correlates of COVID-19 risk perceptions, the relationship of these risk perceptions with attitudes toward cautionary behaviors, such as masking and vaccination, and examined how political beliefs—specifically liberalism—influenced those relationships to better understand the varying responses to the pandemic and how certain demographic groups differ in their COVID-19 risk perceptions. COVID-19 risk perception had significant positive correlations with health anxiety (r = .37, p < .001), education (r = .21, p = .003), attitude toward masking (r = .40, p < .001), attitude toward the COVID-19 vaccination (r = .27, p < .001), and liberalism (r = .36, p < .001), but not age. Liberalism moderated the relationship between COVID-19 risk perceptions and attitude toward masking (p = .02, f2 = .02) and the relationship between COVID-19 risk perceptions and attitude toward vaccination (p = .02, f2 = .02). Lastly, regarding demographic group differences, we found that COVID-19 risk perceptions differed by age (p = .04, d = 0.24) and gender (p < .001, d = 0.50), but not by education. Results support previous research and provide new insights regarding perceived COVID-19 risk and attitudes toward cautionary behaviors, stressing the impact of individual differences on responses to public health emergencies such as COVID-19. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.