“How Worried Were You?”: Biases in How Younger and Older Adults Remember Their Past Feelings About COVID-19

In 2020, the rapid spread of COVID-19 triggered widespread worries about personal health, the health of loved ones, and the impact of the virus on daily life. In this study, we examined how accurately younger and older adults remembered their past feelings of COVID-19 worry and tested the hypothesis that memory of past worry would be biased by current worry levels. To do so, we recruited younger (aged 18–34 years) and older (aged 60–89 years) Americans to complete a multisession online study. In November 2020 participants reported their COVID-19 worry levels. Six months later, in May 2021, the same participants recalled their November 2020 worry levels and reported their current levels of COVID-19 worry on the same scale. During this 6-month period, COVID-19 vaccines were released, and COVID-19 worry levels fluctuated; there was no significant correlation between November 2020 and May 2021 COVID-19 worry levels. We also found that people had low accuracy in recalling their past worry levels, with no significant correlation between experienced and recalled worry. Older adults were more likely than younger adults to overestimate past levels of COVID-19 worry, but current levels of worry biased memory similarly for the 2 age groups. Younger and older adults who were currently experiencing high levels of COVID-19 worry in May 2021 were more likely to overestimate their past levels of COVID-19 worry from November 2020. We discuss implications of these findings for how people prepare for future infectious disease outbreaks, as memory biases can lead to inaccurate predictions and behaviors.