ABSTRACT
In this study, we surveyed low-income elderly people in Hong Kong and their family or friends to test a dual-path model with which we identified how misinformation in the media reached elderly people and how the elderly people's perception and acceptance of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccines were influenced. The findings suggest that elderly people's own exposure to erroneous information regarding vaccines and COVID-19 in the media was positively associated with their misperceptions. In addition, their family or friends, who also received misinformation from the media, were found to relay the misleading or erroneous information to the elderly people, indicating a two-step flow of media influence. While previous studies have predominantly focused on the direct influence of misinformation in the media, our study suggests that social influence can also mediate the influence of misinformation in the media and negatively impacts elderly people's perceptions of COVID-19 vaccines.
ABSTRACT
This study investigated how exposure to negative and misleading online comments about the COVID-19 vaccination persuasive messages and the ensuing corrective rebuttals of these comments affected people's attitudes and intentions regarding vaccination. An online experiment was performed with 344 adults in the United States. The results showed that rebuttals by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, rather than those by social media users, indirectly increased people's willingness to receive the vaccine by reducing their psychological reactance to persuasive messages and their belief in the misinformation contained in the comments. Rebuttals by social media users became more effective in reducing reactance when people initially had stronger pro-vaccination attitudes.
ABSTRACT
Campaigns for mask-wearing have become widespread on digital platforms during the COVID-19 outbreak and have garnered varied responses in the form of comments. The present study conducts a 2 (comment position: pro-mask wearing vs. anti-mask wearing) × 2 (comment tone: civil vs. uncivil) between-subjects experiment to investigate whether and how the position and tone of comments accompanying a health campaign on social media affect people's psychological reactance toward the campaign. The results show that although anti-mask wearing comments following a social media mask-promoting post provoke individuals' perception about others' disapproval of the post, the perception did not trigger the individuals' psychological reactance to the post. Nevertheless, uncivil comments elicit anger, which arouses reactance and cause persuasion failure.
ABSTRACT
Migrant domestic workers (MDWs) in Hong Kong remain vulnerable during the COVID-19 pandemic. Obtaining accurate information is essential for MDWs as it helps them understand their predicament and protect themselves. Therefore, this study delves into the MDWs' health literacy by scrutinizing how they acquire, verify, and respond to pandemic-related information. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 32 Indonesian MDWs, recruited through purposive and snowball sampling. The data were examined using a constant comparative approach in grounded theory. The findings reveal that the participants engaged in information seeking and scanning to obtain health crisis information, mainly through their friends, family members, and community organizations. The participants also verified the information using their judgment or by consulting other actors, such as local organizations and media outlets. The messages they obtained informed the means to protect themselves, which motivated them to adopt preventive measures. However, some also engaged in maladaptive coping, such as taking ineffective preventive actions. The participants also disseminated health crisis information throughout their social circle. This study concluded that MDWs performed four health information behaviors during the pandemic, namely information acquisition, authentication, sharing, and adoption of preventive measures. However, their information practices may change at different stages of the pandemic.
Subject(s)
COVID-19 , Health Literacy , Transients and Migrants , COVID-19/epidemiology , Health Behavior , Humans , Pandemics/prevention & controlABSTRACT
This study aims to examine whether and how user-generated comments and reaction emojis on COVID-19 vaccine-promoting Facebook posts induce psychological reactance to posts and vaccine hesitancy in audiences of the posts. An online experiment including 465 American adults showed that, compared with COVID-19 vaccine promotion posts accompanied by pro-vaccine comments, those accompanied by anti-vaccine comments provoked greater reactance in audiences through the mediating effects of bandwagon perception and the presumed influence of the posts on others. Greater reactance, in turn, increased audiences' COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy. Additionally, reaction emojis altered the comments' effects such that pro-vaccine comments triggered less reactance than anti-vaccine comments when the pro-vaccine comments were accompanied by agreement emojis (i.e., "like" and "love"); whereas there was no significant difference between pro-vaccine comments and anti-vaccine comments in reactance when the pro-vaccine comments were accompanied by rejection emojis (i.e., "angry" and "sad"). Furthermore, audiences' pre-existing attitudes did not affect the effects of opinion cues on their' reactance and vaccine hesitancy.
ABSTRACT
Misinformation on social media pertaining to COVID-19 poses a great threat to public health. The active correction of misinformation by social media users and an understanding of the drivers of such behavior can help solve this ongoing issue. Drawing on the influence of presumed influence model and cognitive appraisal theory, an online experiment (N = 400) was conducted to examine how exposure to corrective messages with regard to COVID-19 misinformation induced individuals' threat appraisals of the influence of the misinformation on others and how these threat appraisals and the corresponding emotional responses motivated individuals to take corrective actions. The results suggested that people's perceptions of the severity of the influence of misinformation on others engendered anticipated guilt, which, in turn, strengthened their intentions to correct misinformation related to COVID-19. The study offers guidance on how to effectively craft a corrective message to encourage audiences to counter misinformation together.