Behind closed doors with a virus – Chapter V. How did the French perceive the risk of infection?

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Crucial perceptions in a pandemic context

Faced with epidemic situations of great uncertainty, individuals mobilize many social and cognitive resources to assess the possibilities and guide their behavior. This evaluation process is fundamental, since individually, we do not have, in situations of emergence, robust, clear and quantified elements on our own probabilities of being infected by a virus, of developing a form serious requiring hospitalization or even death.

For several decades, economists and psychologists have collaborated to study and understand this intuitive threat assessment process, called “risk perception”, generally placing their work within a formal and probabilistic framework. In these models, individuals evaluate in particular the likelihood of an adverse event, as well as the consequences of its possible occurrence…

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