Who Can I Trust in a Scary World? An Examination of the Objects of Trust, Information Sources and Social Distancing Intention Amid COVID-19

Lu Wei and Tien-Tsung Lee
Additional contact information
Lu Wei: College of Media and International Culture, Zhejiang University, 866 Yuhangtang Rd., Hangzhou 310058, China
Tien-Tsung Lee: Department of Communication, Faculty of Social Science, University of Macau, Taipa, Macau, China

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 10, 1-16

Abstract: Trust is a central construct of social research. While numerous studies have investigated trust as either a dependent or independent variable, little attention has been paid to its relationship with health-related behaviors in the context of a public health crisis. How trust in different entities influences people’s social distancing intention is therefore an important question that merits academic scrutiny. Moreover, the relationship between trust and social distancing intention cannot be well understood without an account of the information environment. As previous studies have reached a consensus about the limited effects of information exposure on individual outcomes, this research focuses on possible moderating effects. Results show that information exposure, no matter via interpersonal or media sources, has no direct effects on behavioral intention. Rather, risk communication serves as a moderator of the relationship between trust and social distancing intention.

Keywords: trust; media effects; social distancing; COVID-19 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/10/5321/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/10/5321/ (text/html)

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:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:10:p:5321-:d:556165

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().