An Agenda-Setting Account for Psychological Typhoon Eye Effect on Responses to the Outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan

Shu-Wen Yang, Ming-Xing Xu, Yi Kuang, Yang Ding, Yu-Xin Lin, Fei Wang, Li-Lin Rao, Rui Zheng and Shu Li ()
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Shu-Wen Yang: CAS Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
Ming-Xing Xu: CAS Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
Yi Kuang: Department of Psychology, Hubei University, Wuhan 430062, China
Yang Ding: CAS Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
Yu-Xin Lin: Department of Management and Organizations, Eller College of Management, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA
Fei Wang: School of Journalism and Communication, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, China
Li-Lin Rao: CAS Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
Rui Zheng: CAS Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
Shu Li: Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China

IJERPH, 2023, vol. 20, issue 5, 1-17

Abstract: During the outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan in 2020, we conducted a nationwide survey of 8170 respondents from 31 provinces/municipalities in China via Sojump to examine the relationship between the distance to respondents’ city of residence from Wuhan and their safety concerns and risk perception of the epidemic that occurred in Wuhan City. We found that (1) the farther (psychologically or physically) people were from Wuhan, the more concerned they were with the safety of the epidemic risk in Wuhan, which we dubbed the psychological typhoon eye (PTE) effect on responses to the outbreak of COVID-19; (2) agenda setting can provide a principled account for such effect: the risk information proportion mediated the PTE effect. The theoretical and managerial implications for the PTE effect and public opinion disposal were discussed, and agenda setting was identified to be responsible for the preventable overestimated risk perception.

Keywords: agenda setting; risk perception; psychological typhoon eye effect; risk information proportion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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