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标题：Pairing facts with imagined consequences improves pandemic-related risk perception
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作者：Alyssa H. Sinclair ; Shabnam Hakimi ; Matthew L. Stanley 等
期刊名称：Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
印刷版ISSN：0027-8424
电子版ISSN：1091-6490
出版年度：2021
卷号：118
期号：32
DOI：10.1073/pnas.2100970118
语种：English
出版社：The National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
摘要：Significance During the COVID-19 pandemic, individuals have been forced to balance conflicting needs: stay-at-home guidelines mitigate the spread of the disease but often at the expense of people’s mental health and economic stability. To balance these needs, individuals should be mindful of actual local virus transmission risk. We found that although pandemic-related risk perception was likely inaccurate, perceived risk closely predicted compliance with public health guidelines. Realigning perceived and actual risk is crucial for combating pandemic fatigue and slowing the spread of disease. Therefore, we developed a fast and effective intervention to realign perceived risk with actual risk. Our intervention improved perceived risk and reduced willingness to engage in risky activities, both immediately and after a 1- to 3-wk delay. The COVID-19 pandemic reached staggering new peaks during a global resurgence more than a year after the crisis began. Although public health guidelines initially helped to slow the spread of disease, widespread pandemic fatigue and prolonged harm to financial stability and mental well-being contributed to this resurgence. In the late stage of the pandemic, it became clear that new interventions were needed to support long-term behavior change. Here, we examined subjective perceived risk about COVID-19 and the relationship between perceived risk and engagement in risky behaviors. In study 1 ( n = 303), we found that subjective perceived risk was likely inaccurate but predicted compliance with public health guidelines. In study 2 ( n = 735), we developed a multifaceted intervention designed to realign perceived risk with actual risk. Participants completed an episodic simulation task; we expected that imagining a COVID-related scenario would increase the salience of risk information and enhance behavior change. Immediately following the episodic simulation, participants completed a risk estimation task with individualized feedback about local viral prevalence. We found that information prediction error, a measure of surprise, drove beneficial change in perceived risk and willingness to engage in risky activities. Imagining a COVID-related scenario beforehand enhanced the effect of prediction error on learning. Importantly, our intervention produced lasting effects that persisted after a 1- to 3-wk delay. Overall, we describe a fast and feasible online intervention that effectively changed beliefs and intentions about risky behaviors.
关键词：enCOVID-19;cognition;psychology;risk;intervention