The global outbreak of COVID-19 has had drastic and profound effects on how most people live their lives. As the world navigates these changes, it is possible that the way people think about viruses, and our mental models of disease and disease transmission are changing too. Previous research suggests that people’s beliefs about illnesses are influenced by their age, prior knowledge, and cultural backgrounds (Chan, Ying Ho, & Chow, 2002). Individuals presented with fictitious illness are more likely to rate the illness as contagious when a contagion cue is present (Raman and Gelman, 2005). Using a diverse group of 122 adults, recruited via social media, this study sought to examine how COVID-related contagion cues would affect the way participants attribute illness, and their subsequent thoughts and behaviors. The survey platform Qualtrics was used to host a questionnaire that consisted of demographic questions, vignettes depicting scenarios about three different target illnesses unknown to the participant followed by questions relating to the cause, transmission, time course, and treatment of the disease, and other questions relating to the participants’ own pandemic experience. For participants who regularly interact with children, we asked questions about the kinds of conversations they had about COVID-19. We are still in the process of coding responses, but predict that increased attention paid to COVID-19, including its symptoms and mechanism of transmission would result in participants extending contagion-like attributes to non-contagious illnesses (Raman and Gelman, 2005).

Poster Presentation