Probability Discounting of Attending In-Person Events Throughout the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

After over two years, the COVID-19 pandemic is still a present-day issue. Although precautionary measures have been developed, such as mask wearing and vaccines, individuals have been largely left to make personal decisions about whether to attend certain places and events and whether to adhere to public safety recommendations. And, as naturalistic and more formal analyses have shown, people make different decisions in response to disease risk for a variety of reasons. The area of behavioral economics provides an approach to understanding decision making that incorporates psychological and economic principles. This approach seeks to understand how specific behavioral mechanisms influence choice behavior that can account for individual differences. The current research investigates probabilistic decision-making in the context of attending in-person events throughout the COVID-19 pandemic as a function of various infection risks, with the goal of better understanding how these factors might relate to personal decision-making strategies during the COVID-19 pandemic.