Background
As a global public health crisis, COVID-19 has become an unprecedented situation with World War characteristics [
1]. Since a specific vaccine has not yet been approved for use, non-drug prophylaxis has been the leading alternative used in blocking the spread of COVID-19. The preventive behaviours (e.g. wearing masks and reducing aggregation) are effective in reducing the spread of COVID-19 [
2,
3]. However, despite calls from the government and the media for people to take steps in the prevention of COVID-19, there are still significant differences in the preventive behaviours of people in different regions [
4,
5]. Identifying the determinants of the public’s intention in the prevention of COVID-19 is essential. Such would be the determinants of reducing the spread of COVID-19.
Existing studies of COVID-19 have focused on epidemiology and mental health, with the former being devoted to analysing the epidemiological characteristics of the virus [
6,
7], Conversely, the latter focused on the psychological consequences of the pandemic [
8,
9]. Few researchers have focused on the public’s intention to prevent the COVID-19 pandemic and its psychological mechanisms. Previous studies have found that it was functional fear, rather than risk perception [
10], moral foundations [
11] and political orientation [
12] that positively predicted people’s preventive intention towards COVID-19 [
13]. In contrast, another study has shown that the high level of personal prevention measures (e.g., wash hands after cough) were associated with the low level of psychiatric symptoms such as less depression, anxiety and stress [
14]. The difference with other negative psychology is that fear could encourage public’s preventive behaviours towards COVID-19 infection. However, we have noticed that despite the widespread fear in the face of COVID-19 [
15], the regional differences in public’s preventive intention persist [
5]. As a common human emotion that arises spontaneously in the face of danger [
16], fear does not fully explain the significant differences in the behaviour of people during COVID-19. Predicting people’s preventive intention through fear alone is not enough.
The inclusion of cultural values variables shall aid in elucidating the issues mentioned above. Individualism and collectivism are two distinct cultural values [
17], individualism value personal autonomy, uniqueness and independence while collectivism value person-other relatedness or interdependence and person as being part of a collective [
18]. Although individualism-collectivism is often used to compare cultures, they are also used as regions and individuals differences variable within a culture [
19]. As far as China is concerned, previous studies have found that collectivism in the south is generally higher than that in the north [
20]. More remarkable, In a very collectivistic society such as China, some members can be as individualistic as those in the United States, and vice versa [
21]. The pathogen prevalence hypothesis holds that collectivism is more likely to promote protection against epidemics than does individualism [
22,
23]. As collectivism places more emphasis on in-group vigilance [
24‐
26], such may contribute to people’s intention to prevent COVID-19.
Furthermore, different cultural values may lead to different emotional responses [
27], previous research has found that the collectivism enhances the effectiveness of people’s psychological protection and thus buffers the impact of negative emotions on people [
28]. Based on the insights from the pathogen epidemic hypothesis, we predict that the collectivism degree will raise people’s preventive intention. It shall likewise diminish the impact of fear on their preventive intention during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The emotions, cultural values and behavioural intentions are usually measured by retrospective questionnaires, such as the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) [
29], the Individualism–Collectivism Scale (ICS) [
30] and the Users’ Information Security Awareness Questionnaire (UISAQ) [
31]. However, social isolation makes the use of paper questionnaires complicated during the COVID-19 pandemic. Online surveys rely on the cooperation of participants. Furthermore, it may lead to difficulty in meeting timely requirements and even bring extra burden for the participants [
32]. During the COVID-19 pandemic, social isolation led to a significant increase in people’s social media exposure [
33]. Such provided an excellent opportunity for people to use social media to study the psychological characteristics of other people. As a non-invasive analysis, the validity and superiority of using social media behaviour data (e.g. posts, comments and replies) to measure user’s emotions, cultural values and behavioural intentions have been proven [
34‐
36].
In summary, the present study explores the joint impact of fear and collectivism on people’s preventive intention towards COVID-19, based on Sina Microblog big data from 31 regions in mainland China during the pandemic. The present study aims to provide useful recommendations for the prevention and control of COVID-19 from a psychological perspective.
Discussion
To explore the combined effects of fear and collectivism on people’s preventive intention towards COVID-19, the present study analysed the Sina Microblog texts of 108,914 people. By using multivariate linear regression analysis, we found that there is an interaction between fear and collectivism on people’s preventive intention towards COVID-19. Fear and collectivism reduce each other’s positive influence on people’s preventive intention. Furthermore, a Johnson–Neyman slope test shows that when collectivism exceeds a certain level, the predictive effect of fear on people’s preventive intention towards COVID-19 shifts from positive to negative.
The positive relationship between collectivism and preventive intention in this study verifies the role of culture in the epidemic outbreak as speculated in the pathogen epidemic hypothesis. An investigation during the COVID − 19 pandemic showed that the facemask use rate measured in airport settings was the highest in Asia (46%) and the lowest in the USA (2%) [
5], This may be related to the local cultural orientation, previous studies of cross-cultural psychology have shown that compared with western societies where individualism prevails, especially in the USA, Asia is more inclined to collectivism [
48,
49].
The interaction of fear and collectivism on people’s preventive intention can be explained by combining the pathogen epidemic hypothesis and the cognitive resource theory. A previous study has found that collectivism can provide people with adequate psychological protection, thus enabling people to resist better negative emotions caused by disasters such as epidemics [
28]. Correspondingly, the cognitive resource theory indicated that the psychological action of resisting negative emotions consumes a lot of cognitive resources [
50].
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the people’s resistance to fear and the improvement of their preventive intention towards COVID-19 are both considered cognitive activities. Such activities need to consume or invoke cognitive resources, including collectivism. Conversely, higher collectivism helps people resist fear better, thus reducing the promoting effect of fear on their preventive intention towards COVID-19. Conversely, the increase of fear consumes more cognitive resources, including collectivism. Therefore, the promoting effect of collectivism on the preventive intention of COVID-19 is reduced. In sum, collectivism and fear weaken each other’s role in the promotion of people’s preventive intention towards COVID-19.
It is worth noting that people who are high in collectivism may not adopt more prevention measures because of the higher effectiveness of mental protection. Furthermore, the increase of fear will consume more cognitive resources and shall reduce people’s preventive intention accordingly. When people have already built a psychological defence system towards the COVID-19 pandemic, the increase of fear shall have negative influences on both the preventive intention and mental health of people.
Although fear in some cases is a limited contributor to people’s preventive intention, we should not ignore its adverse effects on both individuals and society. Previous studies have found that people’s fear is significantly and positively correlated with harmful psychological conditions, such as depression and anxiety [
51]. During the COVID-19 pandemic, many people became suspicious that they were infected by the virus and therefore took their own lives—despite the autopsy results showing that they were physically normal [
52,
53]. Negative emotions such as fear may devastate people’s mental health, so we recommend that governments take timely measures to deal with negative public psychology during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, such as to use cognitive behavior therapy to treat public’s depression and anxiety [
54].
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused substantial negative impacts on many countries and regions around the world [
55]. A common concern lies in the promotion of people’s preventive intention and pushing people to maintain a positive psychological state. Based on the social media big data of 108,914 active Microblog users, the study finds that the interaction of collectivism values and fear indeed affects people’s behavioural intentions. The results have some implications for the current pandemic control work.
The promotion of fear on people’s preventive intention may be limited and conditional, and values of collectivism can well compensate for the promotion of fear on preventive intention. Since fear may have a lasting negative impact on individuals, it is not advisable to promote preventive intention among people by arousing fear. On the one hand, we call on governments to timely dispel people’s fear and reduce social panic. On the other hand, we suggest that relevant departments conduct targeted publicity to promote people’s preventive intention through the establishment of a collectivist concept of health. For example, ‘Keeping social distance can protect you and your family from infection’ may be a more effective communication strategy than ‘Keeping social distance can protect you from infection’.
Our research has certain limitations, as well. First, there may be a sampling error. Among the users of Microblog, there are more young people than older people, and most of the participants came from urban areas instead of rural areas. Second, we only considered the cultural heterogeneity within China. The cross-cultural generalisation of the conclusion needs to be further verified. Third, the current analysis and interpretation are limited to a correlation level only. The causal relationship between variables cannot be determined yet. Further studies can build more sophisticated models to explore the causal relationship between cultural values, fear, and the prevention intention towards pandemics.
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