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Emotional Responses and Self-Protective Behavior Within Days of the COVID-19 Outbreak: The Promoting Role of Information Credibility

Due to changes in the information environment since the last global epidemic, high WHO officials have spoken about the need to fight not only the current COVID-19 pandemic but also the related infodemic. We thus explored how people search for information, how they perceive its credibility, and how a...

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Autores principales: Lep, Žan, Babnik, Katarina, Hacin Beyazoglu, Kaja
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7411328/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32849087
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01846
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author Lep, Žan
Babnik, Katarina
Hacin Beyazoglu, Kaja
author_facet Lep, Žan
Babnik, Katarina
Hacin Beyazoglu, Kaja
author_sort Lep, Žan
collection PubMed
description Due to changes in the information environment since the last global epidemic, high WHO officials have spoken about the need to fight not only the current COVID-19 pandemic but also the related infodemic. We thus explored how people search for information, how they perceive its credibility, and how all this relates to their engagement in self-protective behaviors in the crucial period right after the onset of COVID-19 epidemic. The online questionnaire was circulated within 48 h after the first case of COVID-19 was confirmed in Slovenia. We gathered information on participants’ demographics, perception of the situation, their emotional and behavioral responses to the situation (i.e., self-protective behavior), perceived subjective knowledge, perceived credibility of different sources of information, and their level of trust. We looked into the relationships between perceived credibility and trust, and self-protective behavior of 1,718 participants and found that mass media, social media, and officials received relatively low levels of trust. Conversely, medical professionals and scientists were deemed the most credible. The perceived credibility of received information was linked not only with lower levels of negative emotional responses but also with higher adherence to much needed self-protective measures, which aim to contain the spread of the disease. While results might vary between societies with different levels of trust in relevant governmental and professional institutions, and while variances in self-protective behavior scores explained by our model are modest, even a small increase in self-protective behavior could go a long way in viral epidemics like the one we are facing today.
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spelling pubmed-74113282020-08-25 Emotional Responses and Self-Protective Behavior Within Days of the COVID-19 Outbreak: The Promoting Role of Information Credibility Lep, Žan Babnik, Katarina Hacin Beyazoglu, Kaja Front Psychol Psychology Due to changes in the information environment since the last global epidemic, high WHO officials have spoken about the need to fight not only the current COVID-19 pandemic but also the related infodemic. We thus explored how people search for information, how they perceive its credibility, and how all this relates to their engagement in self-protective behaviors in the crucial period right after the onset of COVID-19 epidemic. The online questionnaire was circulated within 48 h after the first case of COVID-19 was confirmed in Slovenia. We gathered information on participants’ demographics, perception of the situation, their emotional and behavioral responses to the situation (i.e., self-protective behavior), perceived subjective knowledge, perceived credibility of different sources of information, and their level of trust. We looked into the relationships between perceived credibility and trust, and self-protective behavior of 1,718 participants and found that mass media, social media, and officials received relatively low levels of trust. Conversely, medical professionals and scientists were deemed the most credible. The perceived credibility of received information was linked not only with lower levels of negative emotional responses but also with higher adherence to much needed self-protective measures, which aim to contain the spread of the disease. While results might vary between societies with different levels of trust in relevant governmental and professional institutions, and while variances in self-protective behavior scores explained by our model are modest, even a small increase in self-protective behavior could go a long way in viral epidemics like the one we are facing today. Frontiers Media S.A. 2020-07-31 /pmc/articles/PMC7411328/ /pubmed/32849087 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01846 Text en Copyright © 2020 Lep, Babnik and Hacin Beyazoglu. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Lep, Žan
Babnik, Katarina
Hacin Beyazoglu, Kaja
Emotional Responses and Self-Protective Behavior Within Days of the COVID-19 Outbreak: The Promoting Role of Information Credibility
title Emotional Responses and Self-Protective Behavior Within Days of the COVID-19 Outbreak: The Promoting Role of Information Credibility
title_full Emotional Responses and Self-Protective Behavior Within Days of the COVID-19 Outbreak: The Promoting Role of Information Credibility
title_fullStr Emotional Responses and Self-Protective Behavior Within Days of the COVID-19 Outbreak: The Promoting Role of Information Credibility
title_full_unstemmed Emotional Responses and Self-Protective Behavior Within Days of the COVID-19 Outbreak: The Promoting Role of Information Credibility
title_short Emotional Responses and Self-Protective Behavior Within Days of the COVID-19 Outbreak: The Promoting Role of Information Credibility
title_sort emotional responses and self-protective behavior within days of the covid-19 outbreak: the promoting role of information credibility
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7411328/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32849087
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01846
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