Getting through a COVID-19 winter: Physical coldness increases the perceived risk of coronavirus disease

What factors influence how people perceive the risk of getting COVID-19? Extending beyond features of general health conditions, media coverage, and genetic susceptibility to disease, the present research investigates whether the immediacy of experience with temperature, a subtle yet pervasive environmental factor, can affect people's estimation of contagion probability. According to the attribute substitution model, people may rely on the visceral experience of coldness, a far easier quantity to evaluate, to estimate the contagion probability of the new coronavirus disease. Study 1 found that Chinese university students who perceived the indoor temperature to be lower believed that the coronavirus was more infectious. To provide causal evidence for the effect, Study 2 randomly assigned participants to different conditions. The results showed that participants in the cold condition reported a higher likelihood of contracting the coronavirus than participants in the control condition. Overall, these findings are consistent with the attribute substitution model: people tend to recruit simpler and more accessible information (e.g., local temperature) in place of more diagnostic but less tangible information (e.g., scientific data) in assessing the risk of disease transmission. Theoretical contributions and the significance of this research for policy makers are discussed.