Explaining Chinese Reactions to COVID-19 During the Outbreak: A Systematic Illustration.

Objective: This research attempts to explore systematically factors that influence public reactions during COVID-19 pandemic, including different measures of risk perceptions, public trust in different levels of governments, and attention to news. Methods: This research uses a national stratified random sample of Chinese population and multiple linear regressions to explore the potential predictors of public reactions to coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19). Results: This research found that the effects of attentions to news, provincial experience, trust in government, demographics, and political cultures on risk perceptions depend on measures of risk perceptions, risk judgments vs. cognitive vs. affective risk perceptions. Moreover, the effect of culture on trust in government is consistent across different levels of government, trust in local, provincial, and central governments; living in the epicenter of COVID-19 in China decreases trust in local/provincial government but not trust in central government; public attention to news can bring both positive (trust in government) and negative (negative affect) outcomes. Finally, it confirmed positive associations among risk perception, subjective knowledge, and attention to news. Conclusion: The findings suggest challenges for risk communication.

The Relationship between Risk Event Involvement and Risk Perception during the COVID-19 Outbreak in China.

BACKGROUND: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a worldwide pandemic that continues to spread and the situation continues to deteriorate globally. It is also a risk event for the public in affected areas. However, little is known about the relationship between "being involved/exposed in a risk event at the moment" and people's risk perception of that event. METHODS: The mediation model and analysis of covariance method were performed on a Chinese sample (N = 351) during the outbreak of COVID-19 to test the underlying mechanism between risk event involvement and risk perception. RESULTS: Risk event involvement was positively related not only to people's event-related risk perception but also their general risk perception (i.e. risk perception towards other events), and negative emotion mediated these relationships. In addition, the residents of Wuhan (vs. non-Wuhan) exhibited significantly higher event-related risk perception as well as general risk perception. CONCLUSIONS: The findings deepen our understanding of risk perception by suggesting that being involved in a risk event at the moment is also a nonnegligible variable positively related to risk perception through increased negative emotion. Finally, theoretical and managerial implications of the result are discussed.