RAPID: Investigating the Causal Propositions of the Affect Heuristic During an Ongoing Pandemic

冠状病毒造成的史无前例的大流行已经感染了世界各地的许多人，引发了焦虑和恐慌，扰乱了生活的方方面面。除了病例和死亡人数不断增加外，其社会、经济和政治影响也是巨大的。由于缺乏疫苗或有效的治疗方法，防止这种疾病传播的一线依赖于人类行为，遵循有关社交距离、卫生和其他推荐措施的指导方针。这种疾病的未来发展轨迹及其影响存在很大的不确定性。在这种灾难性威胁的背景下，这项研究预测了公众对风险的感知，包括希望和恐惧，使用了一种新的理论模型，该模型基于众所周知的“情感启发式”。研究人员通过两种方式构建并测试了这一模型，这两种方式增加了人们对受日常新闻报道影响的积极和消极情绪如何相互作用以指导行为的理解。了解人们对新闻信息的反应变化，不仅可以加深对风险认知的理解，还可以创造出有效的风险沟通信息。这项研究提供了对决定疾病进程的行为的洞察，并有助于减轻其有害的社会和经济影响。研究一直发现，与广泛的危险相关的利益和风险判断之间存在相反的关系。这种关系的产生是因为对风险和收益的认知是以相反的方式从对风险重要性的情感意识中衍生出来的。这个过程被称为情感启发式。情感与感知到的风险和利益之间的关系背后的因果动态仍然知之甚少。这个项目做了三件事：(1a)构建一个系统动力学模拟模型，该模型明确包含允许影响起到调节作用的信息反馈环路，(1b)模拟随着冠状病毒大流行的展开而影响和感知的风险和收益的轨迹，(2)构建一个基于混合代理的模型，该模型结合了系统模型的发现，但允许代理之间的异质性(例如，不同程度的医疗脆弱性)，以及(3)进行一个纵向的国家小组，以调查公众在6个月期间对大流行的反应。这些数据与来自独立小组的数据一起被用来估计和验证这两个模型。这个项目有广泛的影响，因为了解我们如何管理我们对风险和收益的看法对于我们做出的决定和我们的行为至关重要。该项目有助于解释这种纠结，并预测公众对当前大流行的反应，并可能对其他危机做出反应。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The unprecedented pandemic wrought by the coronavirus has infected many people around the world, triggering anxiety and panic and disrupting all facets of life. In addition to the growing numbers of cases and deaths, the social, economic, and political impacts are vast. Lacking a vaccine or effective therapeutic cure, the front line of defense against the spread of this disease depends on human behavior, following guidelines about social distancing, sanitation, and other recommended measures. There is great uncertainty about the future trajectory of the disease and its impacts. Against the backdrop of this catastrophic threat this research forecasts public perceptions of risks, including hopes and fears, using a new theoretical model based on what is known as “the affect heuristic.” The researchers build and test this model in two ways that increase understanding of how positive and negative emotions, influenced by daily news reports, interact to guide behavior. Understanding the changing reactions to news information not only advances understanding of risk perception, but enables the creation of effective risk communication messages. The research provides insight into the behaviors that will determine the course of the disease and can help to mitigate its harmful social and economic impacts.Studies have consistently found an inverse relationship between judgments of benefits and risks associated with a wide array of hazards. This relationship occurs because perceptions of risk and benefit are derived in opposite ways from an affective sense of the importance of the risk. This process became known as the affect heuristic. The causal dynamics that underlie the relationship between affect and perceived risks and benefits remain poorly understood. This project does three things: (1a) constructs a system dynamics simulation model that explicitly incorporates the informational feedback loops that allow affect to play this moderating role and (1b) simulates the trajectories of affect and perceived risk and benefits as the coronavirus pandemic unfolds, (2) constructs a hybrid agent-based model that incorporates findings from the systems model but allows for heterogeneity (e.g., different levels of medical vulnerability) among agents, and (3) conducts a longitudinal national panel to survey the public’s response to the pandemic over a 6 month period. These data together with data from an independent panel are be used to estimate and validate both models. This project has broad impacts because understanding how we manage our perceptions of risk and benefits is critical to the decisions we make and our behaviors. The project helps to explain this entanglement and predict public reaction to the current pandemic and, potentially, to other crises.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.