COVID-19: Risk perception, risk communication, and behavioral intentions.

Critical to limiting the spread of Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and future pandemics is compliance with behavioral recommendations such as mask wearing and social distancing. Compliance may depend upon understanding the seriousness of the health consequences and the likelihood they will occur. However, the statistics that speak to these issues in an ongoing pandemic are complex and may be misunderstood. An online experiment with a U.S. sample tested the impact on perceived likelihood, trust, concern, behavioral intentions, and agreement with government response of numeric (mortality/infection percentage by age group) and gist expressions (which age group was smaller [mortality] or roughly equivalent [infected]). While the differences in risk perception and willingness to engage in activities between younger and older participants were small, "gist infection and mortality" increased willingness to wear a mask among younger participants. Government restrictions (e.g., social distancing) impacted willingness to engage is risk-reduction and risk-seeking activities. The biggest differences were due to political ideology. Although conservatives perceived similar levels of risk as did liberals, they were much less willing to engage in protective behaviors and support government policies. However, conservatives were affected by some risk communication formats and restrictions suggesting that future work should be aimed at this issue. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Risk preferences and aging: the "certainty effect" in older adults' decision making.

A prevalent stereotype is that people become less risk taking and more cautious as they get older. However, in laboratory studies, findings are mixed and often reveal no age differences. In the current series of experiments, we examined whether age differences in risk seeking are more likely to emerge when choices include a certain option (a sure gain or a sure loss). In four experiments, we found that age differences in risk preferences only emerged when participants were offered a choice between a risky and a certain gamble but not when offered two risky gambles. In particular, Experiments 1 and 2 included only gambles about potential gains. Here, compared with younger adults, older adults preferred a certain gain over a chance to win a larger gain and thus, exhibited more risk aversion in the domain of gains. But in Experiments 3 and 4, when offered the chance to take a small sure loss rather than risking a larger loss, older adults exhibited more risk seeking in the domain of losses than younger adults. Both their greater preference for sure gains and greater avoidance of sure losses suggest that older adults weigh certainty more heavily than younger adults. Experiment 4 also indicates that older adults focus more on positive emotions than younger adults do when considering their options, and that this emotional shift can at least partially account for age differences in how much people are swayed by certainty in their choices.