Is there an emotional Stroop effect for coronavirus-related words?

The emotional Stroop effect refers to the finding that performance is typically poorer (i.e., slower latencies and/or lower accuracy rates) for threat-related words (such as “CRASH”) than for neutral words (such as “PENCIL”). This study will examine whether words associated with coronavirus (but which were considered neutral prior to the pandemic) will elicit slower RTs relative to a matched control condition of neutral words. In order words, this study aims to investigate whether there is an emotional Stroop effect for coronavirus-related words. One-hundred participants will take part in this online experiment. This study will employ a Stroop paradigm, in which participants are required to respond to the colour a word is printed in whilst ignoring the word itself. Participants will complete two blocks of 20 trials for both (the coronavirus and control) conditions.