An extended health belief model for COVID-19: understanding the media-based processes leading to social distancing and panic buying

Marie Louise Radanielina Hita (), Yany Grégoire (), Bruno Lussier (), Simon Boissonneault (), Christian Vandenberghe () and Sylvain Sénécal ()
Additional contact information
Marie Louise Radanielina Hita: HEC Montréal RBC Groupe Financier
Yany Grégoire: HEC Montréal
Bruno Lussier: HEC Montréal
Simon Boissonneault: HEC Montréal
Christian Vandenberghe: HEC Montréal
Sylvain Sénécal: HEC Montréal

Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 2023, vol. 51, issue 1, No 8, 132-152

Abstract: Abstract Building on the health belief model (HBM), this research tests, over six months, how the exposure to COVID-related information in the media affects fear, which in turn conditions beliefs about the severity of the virus, susceptibility of getting the virus, and benefits of safety measures. These health beliefs ultimately lead to social distancing and panic buying. As a first contribution, we find that fear is not directly triggered by the objective severity of a crisis, but rather formed over time by the way individuals are exposed to media. Second, we show that fear affects behaviors through the components of the HBM which relate to the risks/benefits of a situation. Last, we find that critical thinking about media content amplifies the “adaptive” responses of our model (e.g., health beliefs, social distancing) and reduces its “maladaptive” responses (e.g., panic buying). Interestingly, we note that the beneficial effect of critical thinking about media content disappears as the level of fear increases over time. The implications of these findings for policymakers, media companies, and theory are further discussed.

Keywords: Crisis severity; Media exposure; Critical thinking about media content; Fear appeals; Social distancing; Panic buying; Health belief model; Public policy; Mixed linear model; Longitudinal analyses (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11747-022-00865-8 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:joamsc:v:51:y:2023:i:1:d:10.1007_s11747-022-00865-8

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.springer ... gement/journal/11747

DOI: 10.1007/s11747-022-00865-8

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science is currently edited by John Hulland, Anne Hoekman and Mark Houston

More articles in Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().