How can individuals’ responses to the coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) pandemic be used to inform constructive responses for climate action? We present an exploratory, mixed-methods investigation (N = 1784 US adults) into similarities and differences in individuals’ reactions to COVID-19 and climate change in June 2020. Participants identified many similarities between the issues, indicating that both are harmful to public health, politically polarizing, have global impacts, and have solutions. Participants also perceived many differences between the two threats: many perceived COVID-19 as medical, natural, and on a shorter timescale, while many perceived climate change as environmental, human caused, and on a longer timescale. Emotional reactions to each topic predict topic-relevant behaviors, but more strongly, and with a broader range of emotional reactions, for climate change than COVID-19. Open-ended responses show that hope was elicited for both issues in response to contemplating taking collective and individual actions, and despair was elicited for both issues in response to perceiving that others do not take the issues seriously. Finally, participants perceived that they were engaging in relatively more COVID-19 mitigation behaviors and some climate change mitigation behaviors than others (i.e., the “better-than-average” effect). Many participants believed others were relatively unconcerned about both threats because of the invisibility of the threats, ignorance, and elite cues (e.g., then-President Trump downplaying the threat).

如何利用个人对冠状病毒病 19 (COVID-19) 大流行的反应来为气候行动提供建设性反应？我们于 2020 年 6 月开展了一项探索性混合方法调查（ N = 1784 名美国成年人），调查个人对 COVID-19 和气候变化的反应的异同。参与者发现了这些问题之间的许多相似之处，表明两者都对公众有害健康，政治两极分化，具有全球影响，并且有解决方案。参与者还认识到这两种威胁之间存在许多差异：许多人认为 COVID-19 是医学的、自然的，且时间尺度较短，而许多人认为气候变化是环境、人为造成的，且时间尺度较长。对每个主题的情绪反应可以预测与主题相关的行为，但对气候变化的情绪反应比 COVID-19 更强烈、范围更广。开放式回答表明，当考虑采取集体和个人行动时，人们对这两个问题都抱有希望，而当认为其他人不认真对待这些问题时，人们对这两个问题都感到绝望。最后，参与者认为他们比其他人采取了相对更多的 COVID-19 缓解行为和一些气候变化缓解行为（即“优于平均水平”效应）。许多参与者认为，其他人对这两种威胁相对不关心，因为威胁的隐形性、无知和精英暗示（例如，时任总统特朗普淡化了威胁）。