The Impact of Individual Behaviors and Governmental Guidance Measures on Pandemic-Triggered Public Sentiment Based on System Dynamics and Cross-Validation

Hainan Huang, Weifan Chen, Tian Xie, Yaoyao Wei, Ziqing Feng and Weijiong Wu
Additional contact information
Hainan Huang: School of Economics, Management and Law at the University of South China, Hengyang 421001, China
Weifan Chen: Information Sciences and Technology at The Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA 16802, USA
Tian Xie: School of Economics, Management and Law at the University of South China, Hengyang 421001, China
Yaoyao Wei: School of Economics, Management and Law at the University of South China, Hengyang 421001, China
Ziqing Feng: School of Economics, Management and Law at the University of South China, Hengyang 421001, China
Weijiong Wu: School of Management, Guangdong University of Technology, Guangzhou 510520, China

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 8, 1-25

Abstract: Negative online public sentiment generated by government mishandling of pandemics and other disasters can easily trigger widespread panic and distrust, causing great harm. It is important to understand the law of public sentiment dissemination and use it in a timely and appropriate way. Using the big data of online public sentiment during the COVID-19 period, this paper analyzes and establishes a cross-validation based public sentiment system dynamics model which can simulate the evolution processes of public sentiment under the effects of individual behaviors and governmental guidance measures. A concrete case of a violation of relevant regulations during COVID-19 epidemic that sparked public sentiment in China is introduced as a study sample to test the effectiveness of the proposed method. By running the model, the results show that an increase in government responsiveness contributes to the spread of positive social sentiment but also promotes negative sentiment. Positive individual behavior suppresses negative emotions while promoting the spread of positive emotions. Changes in the disaster context (epidemic) have an impact on the spread of sentiment, but the effect is mediocre.

Keywords: pandemic; public sentiment; system dynamics; cross-validation; simulation and control (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: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/8/4245/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/8/4245/ (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:8:p:4245-:d:537742

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 ().