This study was conducted by researchers from McGill University in Montreal, Canada. They worked with other researchers from the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital to survey over 1,500 Americans between April and June 2020 to gauge how concerned they were about the coronavirus pandemic and how this fear may have affected their thinking.
The study participants were asked to rate how worried they are about COVID-19 and were then asked to complete a series of cognitive and psychological examinations. These tests measured how well each person processed information and their attitudes to taking risks.
For the information processing exam, participants were asked to match pairs of symbols and digits according to a fixed rule. For the risk attitude test, participants were given an economic decision task where they made a series of hypothetical choices between “certain” options that would net them a small amount of money and “risky” options that gave them a chance to win a larger amount of money, but with the small chance of winning no money.
According to the results of the tests, how much a person is worried about COVID-19 and the pandemic predicted their tendency to distort described risk levels. They “underweighted likely probabilities and overweighted unlikely probabilities,” wrote the researchers.
The study authors also suggested that the more anxious respondents are, the more sensitive they may be to risks. This may result in them seeking out more information before making choices....<<<Read More>>>...