Public psychological distance and spatial distribution characteristics during the COVID-19 pandemic: a Chinese context.

The COVID-19 pandemic is a public health emergency, which continues to have a significant impact on the functioning of society and the public's daily life. From the perspective of psychological distance (PD), this study used descriptive, differential, and spatial autocorrelation analysis methods to explore the cognitive distance, emotional distance, expected distance and behavioral distance of the Chinese public in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic. An analysis of 4042 valid sample data found that: (1) The event emotional distance and subject emotional distance were both furthest from the event and subject psychological distance dimensions, and anger about the event was the strongest. (2) The government was the most appealing subject in the process of pandemic prevention and control, but at the same time, the public's sense of closeness to the government was also lower than that of the other three subjects, e.g., medical institutions. (3) Different pandemic regions showed significant differences in PD. Mean scores of PD in each risk region were as follows: High-risk regions > medium-risk regions > low-risk regions. (4) From a global perspective, no spatial autocorrelation was found in PD. However, from a local perspective, high-value regions (provinces with distant PD) are mainly concentrated in the southern regions (Guizhou, Guangxi, Hainan, Jiangxi), and low-value regions (provinces with close PD) are mainly concentrated in North China (Shanxi, Hebei, Beijing). Combined with the relevant conclusions, this paper put forward policy recommendations.

International Research Progress and Evolution Trend of Interpersonal Trust—Prospects under COVID-19 Pandemic

Retrospecting articles on interpersonal trust is of great importance for understanding its current status and future development in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, especially, with the widespread use of Big Data and Blockchain. In total, 1532 articles related to interpersonal trust were collected as research database to draw keyword co-occurrence mapping and timeline mapping by VOSviewer and CiteSpace. On this basis, the research content and evolution trend of interpersonal trust were systematically analyzed. The results show that: (1) Data cleaning by code was first integrated with Knowledge Mapping and then used to review the research of interpersonal trust;(2) Developed countries have contributed the most to the research of interpersonal trust;(3) Social capital, knowledge sharing, job and organizational performance, Chinese Guanxi are the research hotspots of interpersonal trust;(4) The research hotspots on interpersonal trust evolve from the level of individual psychology and behavior to the level of social stability and development and then to the level of organization operation and management;(5) At present, the research on interpersonal trust is in the outbreak period;fMRI technology and Big Data and Blockchain technology gradually become vital research tools of interpersonal trust, which provides significant prospects for the following research of interpersonal trust under the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Dual Impacts of Green Credit on Economy and Environment: Evidence from China

Green credit is regarded as an important means to promote sustainable growth. Based on the provincial panel dataset of China from 2007 to 2017, this paper investigates the dual impacts of green credit on the economy and environment, and it establishes mediating effect models to analyze the Porter hypothesis. The results show that the green credit policy significantly improves economic performance and reduces pollutant emissions. The above results are robust to employing methods with alternative variables and instrumental variables. Second, the green credit policy contributes to innovation;that is, the green credit increases the innovation scale and improves innovation efficiency. The results of mediating effect models suggest that the Porter effect of green credit can be achieved by improving innovation efficiency. The findings of the current study indicate that the green credit policy helps achieve the win–win situation for economic goals and environmental targets.

Study on the relationship between crisis awareness and medical waste separation behavior shown by residents during the COVID-19 epidemic.

Specific awareness is an important factor that affects individual behavioral decisions. This study explored the relationship between crisis awareness and medical waste separation behavior shown by urban residents during the COVID-19 epidemic in China. The results of a questionnaire survey data (N = 668) were subjected to statistical analyses, regression analyses, and cross-analyses. In terms of medical waste separation, the detection rate was 12.65%, among which, the waste separation behavior by citizens was the highest (24.56%). In terms of the relationship between crisis awareness and medical waste separation behavior, the crisis awareness generated by the environmental situation is significantly related to individuals' participation in the separation of medical waste. In particular, individual spontaneous crisis awareness only had a significant positive correlation with the waste separation behavior for the decision factor. The residents were clustered into "sensitive", "conscious", "passive", and "insensitive" types based on the original crisis awareness characteristics. The "sensitive" group was more actively involved in the separation of medical waste, while the "insensitive" group showed the worst performance for the separation of medical waste. A comparison of the separation behaviors shown by the "conscious" group and the "passive" group confirmed that environment-driven crisis awareness has a higher correlation with the separation of medical waste by residents.