“…The main reason for this choice was a naturally occurring global event, that is, the COVID-19 pandemic. Importantly, the UO bias had already been reported under those circumstances in many places around the world proving its robustness: in Italy and Romania ( Druică et al., 2020 ), Kazakhstan and Iran ( Kulesza et al, 2021 ), France, Italy, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom ( McColl et al, 2022 ), and Poland ( Dolinski et al, 2021 ). In all of this research, participants perceived themselves as less threatened by COVID-19 in comparison with similar peers.…”