Spatial Optimism in Individuals' Future Thinking About the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Spatial optimism is the tendency to underestimate the severity of environmental threats in local relative to global contexts. We investigated whether spatial optimism was evident in people's beliefs about the estimated duration and severity of the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants from 15 countries provided estimates of (i) when the pandemic would be brought under control and (ii) infection rates for their country and globally. Overall, individuals estimated that the pandemic would end sooner and with a lower infection rate in their own country relative to the rest of the world. This spatial optimism bias was moderated by the severity of COVID-19 at the country level, such that the bias was greatest in countries with lower levels of pandemic severity. Findings parallel those observed for environmental threats and provide evidence for a spatial optimism bias in a distinct domain of collective thought. Implications for public-health messaging are discussed.