The World Health Organization has declared the rapid spread of COVID-19 around the world a global public health emergency. It is well-known that the spread of the disease is influenced by people's willingness to adopt preventative public health behaviors, which are often associated with public risk perception. In this study, we present the first assessment of public risk perception of COVID-19 around the world using national samples (total N ¼ 6,991) in ten countries across Europe, America, and Asia. We find that although levels of concern are relatively high, they are highest in the UK compared to all other sampled countries. Pooled across countries, personal experience with the virus, individualistic and prosocial values, hearing about the virus from friends and family, trust in government, science, and medical professionals, personal knowledge of government strategy, and personal and collective efficacy were all significant predictors of risk perception. Although there was substantial variability across cultures, individualistic worldviews, personal experience, prosocial values, and social amplification through friends and family in particular were found to be significant determinants in more than half of the countries examined. Risk perception correlated significantly with reported adoption of preventative health behaviors in all ten countries. Implications for effective risk communication are discussed.

Misinformation about COVID-19 is a major threat to public health. Using five national samples from the UK ( n = 1050 and n = 1150), Ireland ( n = 700), the USA ( n = 700), Spain ( n = 700) and Mexico ( n = 700), we examine predictors of belief in the most common statements about the virus that contain misinformation. We also investigate the prevalence of belief in COVID-19 misinformation across different countries and the role of belief in such misinformation in predicting relevant health behaviours. We find that while public belief in misinformation about COVID-19 is not particularly common, a substantial proportion views this type of misinformation as highly reliable in each country surveyed. In addition, a small group of participants find common factual information about the virus highly unreliable. We also find that increased susceptibility to misinformation negatively affects people's self-reported compliance with public health guidance about COVID-19, as well as people's willingness to get vaccinated against the virus and to recommend the vaccine to vulnerable friends and family. Across all countries surveyed, we find that higher trust in scientists and having higher numeracy skills were associated with lower susceptibility to coronavirus-related misinformation. Taken together, these results demonstrate a clear link between susceptibility to misinformation and both vaccine hesitancy and a reduced likelihood to comply with health guidance measures, and suggest that interventions which aim to improve critical thinking and trust in science may be a promising avenue for future research.

In this study, we present results from five cross-sectional surveys on public risk perception of COVID-19 and its association with health protective behaviours in the UK over a 10-month period (March 2020 to January 2021). Samples were nationally balanced on age, gender, and ethnicity (total N ¼ 6,281). We find that although risk perception varies between the time points surveyed, it is consistently, significantly, and positively correlated with the reported adoption of protective health behaviours, such as wearing face masks or social distancing. There is also an increase in reported health protective behaviours in the UK between March 2020 and January 2021. The strength of the association between risk perception and behaviour varies by time point, with a stronger relationship in January 2021 compared to March and May 2020. We also assess the stability of the psychological determinants of risk perception over time. People's prosocial tendencies and individualistic worldviews, experience with the virus, trust in government, science, and medical professionals, as well as personal and collective efficacy all emerged as significant predictors. With few exceptions, these predictors remained consistent in their relationship with risk perception over time. Lastly, we find that psychological factors are more predictive of risk perception than an objective measure of situational severity, i.e. the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases at the time of data collection. Implications for risk communication are discussed.

The present research explores the relationship between anticipated emotions and pro-environmental decision making comparing two differently valenced emotions: anticipated pride and guilt. In an experimental design, we examined the causal effects of anticipated pride versus guilt on pro-environmental decision making and behavioral intentions by making anticipated emotions (i.e. pride and guilt) salient just prior to asking participants to make a series of environmental decisions. We find evidence that anticipating one’s positive future emotional state from green action just prior to making an environmental decision leads to higher pro-environmental behavioral intentions compared to anticipating one’s negative emotional state from inaction. This finding suggests a rethinking in the domain of environmental and climate change messaging, which has traditionally favored inducing negative emotions such as guilt to promote pro-environmental action. Furthermore, exploratory results comparing anticipated pride and guilt inductions to baseline behavior point toward a reactance eliciting effect of anticipated guilt.

ObjectiveDescribe demographical, social and psychological correlates of willingness to receive a COVID-19 vaccine.SettingSeries of online surveys undertaken between March and October 2020.ParticipantsA total of 25 separate national samples (matched to country population by age and sex) in 12 different countries were recruited through online panel providers (n=25 334).Primary outcome measuresReported willingness to receive a COVID-19 vaccination.ResultsReported willingness to receive a vaccine varied widely across samples, ranging from 63% to 88%. Multivariate logistic regression analyses reveal sex (female OR=0.59, 95% CI 0.55 to 0.64), trust in medical and scientific experts (OR=1.28, 95% CI 1.22 to 1.34) and worry about the COVID-19 virus (OR=1.47, 95% CI 1.41 to 1.53) as the strongest correlates of stated vaccine acceptance considering pooled data and the most consistent correlates across countries. In a subset of UK samples, we show that these effects are robust after controlling for attitudes towards vaccination in general.ConclusionsOur results indicate that the burden of trust largely rests on the shoulders of the scientific and medical community, with implications for how future COVID-19 vaccination information should be communicated to maximise uptake.

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Interest in the psychology of misinformation has exploded in recent years. Despite ample research, to date there is no psychometrically validated instrument to measure people’s ability to detect misinformation. To overcome this, we introduce the Verification done framework, an overarching interpretation schema, that simultaneously considers overall veracity discernment, and the distinct, measurable abilities (real news detection, fake news detection), and biases (distrust—negative judgement bias; naïvité—positive judgement bias) that it is composed of—thus offering a holistic and nuanced assessment. We then conduct three studies with six independent samples (Ntotal = 7,291) to develop, validate, and apply the Misinformation Susceptibility Test (MIST), the first psychometrically validated measurement instrument of veracity discernment ability. In Study 1 (N = 409), we use a neural network language model to generate items for our test, and use factor analysis and item-response theory to create the MIST-20 (20 items; <2 minutes) and MIST-8 (8 items; <1 minute). In Study 2 (N = 6,461), we confirm model fit in four representative samples (US, UK), from three different sampling platforms—Respondi, CloudResearch, and Prolific. We also explore the MIST’s nomological net, which demonstrates good convergent and discriminant validity, and generate age-, region-, and country-specific norm tables. In Study 3 (N = 421), we demonstrate how the MIST can be used in practice to test the effectiveness of interventions using the Verification done framework. We provide instructions for researchers and practitioners on how to implement the MIST as a screening tool, covariate, or framework for evaluating effects.

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