ABSTRACT
During the COVID-19 pandemic, government social marketing messages support strategies of suppression (often stay-at-home orders or lockdowns) and/or mitigation (through testing, isolation, and tracing). Success at lowering the virus reproduction rate (R0) depends on social marketing messaging that rapidly changes behaviors. This study explores a potential side effect of a successful antivirus public health messaging campaign, when employees are back at work but the virus threat has not disappeared, that leads to on-the-job stress. The authors surveyed office employees in Shanghai, the People's Republic of China, where a nearly 2-month COVID-19 quarantine ended in late March 2020 and work locations reopened with strong public health messaging to encourage cooperation with continued virus spread suppression strategies-an approach likely to be followed in numerous countries. This study examines the relationship of pandemic public messaging sensitivity with tension and negative emotions on the job. Canonical correlation analysis is used with a sample of 1154 respondents, 4 predictor variables (reference group, self-regulation, media, and risk), and 2 criterion variables (negative emotions and job tension). Results show employees are differentially affected by the pandemic background noise. Those more sensitive to social-level virus risks and more open to reference group influence report increased levels of negative emotions and work tension.