Health psychology shows that responses to risk and threat depend on perceptions as much as objective factors. The present study focuses on the precursors of perceived threat of COVID‐19. We draw on political and social psychology and use the aversion amplification hypothesis to propose that subjective uncertainty and political trust should interactively impact perceived threat. We conducted a cross‐sectional survey amongst the general population of Scotland (N = 188) in the early period of the COVID‐19 pandemic in the UK. We hypothesised that high political trust should ameliorate the threat‐elevating impact of uncertainty, thereby reducing the perceived threat from a high to moderate level. This hypothesis was supported, even after accounting for demographic differences. The discussion addresses the implications of the interactive role of trust and uncertainty for strategies to manage public behaviour as the pandemic progresses.

中文翻译：

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新兴的COVID-19大流行中的厌恶情绪加剧：政治信任和主观不确定性对感知到的威胁的影响

健康心理学表明，对风险和威胁的反应不仅取决于客观因素，还取决于感知。本研究着重于感知到的COVID-19威胁的前兆。我们借鉴政治和社会心理学，并使用厌恶放大假说来提出主观不确定性和政治信任应以交互方式影响感知到的威胁。我们在苏格兰总人口中进行了横断面调查（N= 188）在英国COVID-19大流行的早期。我们假设，高度的政治信任应该减轻不确定性对威胁的威胁，从而将感知到的威胁从高到中等程度降低。即使考虑了人口差异，这一假设也得到了支持。讨论讨论了随着流行病的发展，信任和不确定性的互动作用对管理公共行为的策略的影响。