Risk perception and optimism bias during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic

Slowing the spread of COVID-19 requires people to actively change their lives by following protective practices, such as physical distancing and disinfecting their hands. Perceptions about the personal risk of COVID-19 may affect compliance with these practices. In this study, we assessed risk perception and optimism about COVID-19 in a multinational (UK, USA, Germany), longitudinal design during the early stages of the pandemic (16.03.2020; 01.04.2020; 20.05.2020). Our main findings are that 1) people showed a comparative optimism bias about getting infected and infecting others, but not for getting severe symptoms, 2) this optimism bias did not change over time, 3) optimism bias seemed to relate to perceived level of control over the action, 4) risk perception was linked to publicly available information about the disorder (e.g., older people are at a higher risk of getting severe symptoms), and 5) people reported adhering so closely to protective measures that these measures reached ceiling effects. Thus, there was not enough variance in protective measures to appropriately link risk perception and adherence to protective measures. We also collected additional cross-sectional samples, with which we are currently testing which of the findings reported in this preprint replicate. Our results provide detailed descriptions of risk perceptions and optimistic beliefs during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.