Example of experimental stimuli.

Participants were instructed to imagine to be the person on the left side, represented by a gender-matched, black silhouette, and to indicate the distance to the other person (female or male, represented in A-C and B, respectively) that they would feel comfortable keeping. The other person could be wearing protective equipment (A-B) or not (C). The label appearing on the upper part of the screen indicated the COVID-19 test result of the other person: a Positive test result was represented by a “+” and displayed in red (A); an Unknown test result was represented by a “?”and displayed in gray (B); a Negative test result was represented by a “-”and shown in green (C).