Decisions for the Main Study
anxiety
The second pilot study was successful in alleviating concerns about the impact of the threat manipulation in an online setting and when competing with so much COVID-related media at the time. In fact, we found that participants who read the highly threatening articles not only reported stronger COVID threat perceptions, but also demonstrated enhanced recognition of the information featured in the article. As such, we felt confident that our threat manipulation was successful even when administered in an online setting. To reduce participant burden and maximise participant numbers, our memory measure was omitted from the final study. Additionally, a more specific measure of COVID-related health anxiety was chosen for the main study.