The psychological impact of reopening after COVID-19 lockdowns in China: Threat perception, affect and moral conflict

Qin Duan, Shangyi Chen, Hang Yuan, Yue Zhang and Siyang Luo

Social Science & Medicine, 2025, vol. 365, issue C

Abstract: COVID-19 reopening of China in the context of the highly transmissible Omicron variant has resulted in an unprecedented wave of infections, placing significant strain on healthcare systems and giving rise to a range of psychological responses, including perceptions of the pandemic's threat, emotional reactions, and prosocial intentions amid moral conflicts over medical resource scarcity and evolving public health responses. This study employed a comprehensive approach integrating surveys, behavioral experiments, and agent-based modeling (ABM) to examine these psychological impacts of COVID-19 reopening. A total of 1,675 participants from 34 Chinese provinces completed the surveys, with 587 also undertaking the reversal-learning task. The measures employed were primarily designed to assess perceptions of COVID-19 infection risk and medical resources, negative affect, and prosocial intentions in moral conflicts. Results found that the perception of infection risk and associated negative affects remained elevated until the pandemic decline. However, prosocial intentions initially increased, but subsequently decreased. Moreover, the influence of perceived public medical resources and negative affect on prosocial intentions is mediated by distinct pathways. ABM suggested that anxiety might accelerate the pandemic but increase overall fatalities through prosocial actions, while public medical resources perceptions might shape the pandemic by influencing healthcare-seeking behaviors. These findings underscore the crucial role of psychological factors in pandemic management, alongside physical aspects, providing a scientific foundation for future responses.

Keywords: COVID-19 reopening policy; Threat perception; Affect; Moral conflict; Agent-based modeling (ABM) (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953624010657
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

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:eee:socmed:v:365:y:2025:i:c:s0277953624010657

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/supportfaq.cws_home/regional
http://www.elsevier. ... _01_ooc_1&version=01

DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2024.117611

Access Statistics for this article

Social Science & Medicine is currently edited by Ichiro (I.) Kawachi and S.V. (S.V.) Subramanian

More articles in Social Science & Medicine from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().