Does the Coronavirus Epidemic Take Advantage of Human Optimism Bias?

Frontiers in Psychology

article

Hugo Bottemanne¹  Orphée Morlaàs¹  Philippe Fossati¹  Liane Schmidt¹ 

[1] Institut du Cerveau (Paris Brain Institute, Sorbonne University/CNRS/INSERM;Department of Adult Psychiatry, Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital

关键词: coronavirus;    COVID-19;    belief;    perceived risk;    predictive coding;    cognitive biases;    bayesian brain;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyg.2020.02001

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

On March 15, the SARS-Cov2 outbreak had affected more than 160,000 people worldwide and6,000 people had died. While the World Health Organization had declared a public healthemergency as early as the 30th of January, and subsequent evidence had highlighted the threatof a global pandemic, it took many more weeks for many governments and individuals to putinto place and adopt precautionary measures. Some observers were therefore surprised aboutthe discrepancy between the available official warnings and individual perceptions of the risksassociated with COVID-19.When confronted with novel pathogens, humans generate several beliefs about the shortand long-term consequences of the new threat. For example, they estimate their likelihood ofbeing exposed, getting infected or infecting others, but also the severity of the emerging event,the controllability of the epidemic, and the efficiency of psychological and physiological copingresponses (Rogers, 1975). Numerous studies have shown that protective measures—in terms ofcontainment or body protection—are largely dependent upon individuals’ ability to accuratelyperceive these consequences (Rogers, 1975). Due to the absence of treatment and vaccination forCOVID-19, the success of these measures is particularly critical.

【 授权许可】

CC BY