Scientific and Folk Theories of Viral Transmission: A Comparison of COVID-19 and the Common Cold

Abstract

Disease transmission is a fruitful domain in which to examine how scientific and folk theories interrelate, given laypeople’s access to multiple sources of information to explain events of personal significance. The current paper reports an in-depth survey of U.S. adults’ (N = 238) causal reasoning about two viral illnesses: a novel, deadly disease that has massively disrupted everyone’s lives (COVID-19), and a familiar, innocuous disease that has essentially no serious consequences (the common cold). Participants received a series of closed-ended and open-ended questions probing their reasoning about disease transmission, with a focus on causal mechanisms underlying disease contraction, transmission, treatment, and prevention; non-visible (internal) biological processes; and ontological frameworks regarding what kinds of entities viruses are. We also assessed participants’ attitudes, such as their trust in scientific experts and willingness to be vaccinated. Results indicated complexity in people’s reasoning, consistent with the co-existence of multiple explanatory frameworks. An understanding of viral transmission and viral replication existed alongside folk theories, placeholder beliefs, and lack of differentiation between viral and non-viral disease. For example, roughly 40% of participants who explained illness in terms of the transmission of viruses also endorsed a non-viral folk theory, such as exposure to cold weather or special foods as curative. Additionally, participants made use of competing modes of construal (biological, mechanical, and psychological) when explaining how viruses operate, such as framing the immune system response (biological) as cells trying to fight off the virus (psychological). Indeed, participants who displayed greater knowledge about viral transmission were significantly more likely to anthropomorphize bodily processes. Although comparisons of COVID-19 and the common cold revealed relatively few differences, the latter, more familiar disease elicited consistently lower levels of accuracy and greater reliance on folk theories. Moreover, for COVID-19 in particular, accuracy positively correlated with attitudes (trusting medical scientists and taking the disease more seriously), self-protective behaviors (such as social distancing and mask-wearing), and willingness to be vaccinated. For both diseases, self-assessed knowledge about the disease negatively predicted accuracy. The results are discussed in relation to challenges for formal models of explanatory reasoning.

“It kinda has like a mind”: Children's and parents' beliefs concerning viral disease transmission for COVID-19 and the common cold

“…Although the common cold is a more familiar illness, we hypothesized that COVID-19 may be better understood, given children's heightened interest in causal mechanisms when encountering unexpected phenomena ( Legare et al, 2010 ; Stahl & Feigenson, 2015 ), as well as the enormous amount of attention COVID-19 had received by the time of the present study. Consistent with this possibility, adults tested early in the pandemic showed higher rates of accuracy regarding COVID-19 than the common cold ( Labotka & Gelman, 2022 ), and children tested during the COVID-19 pandemic were found to have more in-depth knowledge and causal understanding of contagious illness than children tested prior to the pandemic ( Leotti, Pochinki, Reis, Bonawitz, & LoBue, 2021 ).…”

“…Folk beliefs . Folk beliefs were more frequently expressed to explain the common cold than COVID-19, perhaps due to the greater opportunity for folk causal accounts to develop and be transmitted over time for the more familiar illness (see also Labotka & Gelman, 2022 ). The two most common sets of folk beliefs that were expressed concerned temperature (e.g., going outside with wet hair; not wearing warm enough clothing in cold weather) and food (either as preventive or curative).…”

“…Parents additionally answered questions regarding COVID-19 attitudes, protective behaviors, conversations with their children about illness, and demographics. The survey was based on a previously conducted survey with MTurkers ( Labotka & Gelman, 2022 , which provides additional details).…”

“…They also received 14 questions regarding how often they engaged in protective behaviors such as wearing a mask or social distancing, adapted from Gallup. All items can be found in Labotka and Gelman (2022) .…”

“…Qualitative coding . As pre-registered, responses to the 22 open-ended questions in the Viral transmission survey were coded to assess 12 distinct concepts (see items marked as ‘OE’ in Table 2 , and details in Labotka & Gelman, 2022 ; see also Au et al, 2008 , for coding of germ survival and death, germ replication, explicit and implicit germ movement, folk beliefs, and points of entry). The codes were not mutually exclusive, meaning that a given response could receive multiple codes (for example, a particular response might be coded as “explicit germ movement,” “points of entry,” and “animism”).…”