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COVID-19 Information Overload and Cyber Aggression during the Pandemic Lockdown: The Mediating Role of Depression/Anxiety and the Moderating Role of Confucian Responsibility Thinking

Many countries adopted lockdown measures to curb the spread of the outbreak in 2020, while information about COVID-19 has dominated various media outlets, which has led to information overload for people. However, previous research has mainly focused on cancer information overload and the correspond...

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Autores principales: Wang, Qiong, Luo, Xiao, Tu, Ruilin, Xiao, Tao, Hu, Wei
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8834912/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35162578
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19031540
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author Wang, Qiong
Luo, Xiao
Tu, Ruilin
Xiao, Tao
Hu, Wei
author_facet Wang, Qiong
Luo, Xiao
Tu, Ruilin
Xiao, Tao
Hu, Wei
author_sort Wang, Qiong
collection PubMed
description Many countries adopted lockdown measures to curb the spread of the outbreak in 2020, while information about COVID-19 has dominated various media outlets, which has led to information overload for people. However, previous research has mainly focused on cancer information overload and the corresponding consequence, and failed to examine its adverse effects in the context of major public health events. Based on the Frustrate Aggression Theory and the Scapegoat Theory, the present study established a moderated mediation model to investigate the emotional and behavioral outcomes of COVID-19 information overload. The mediating role of depression/anxiety in the association between COVID-19 information overload and cyber aggression, as well as the moderating role of Confucian responsibility thinking, were tested. This model was examined with 1005 Chinese people (mean age = 26.91 years, SD = 9.94) during the COVID-19 outbreak. Mediation analyses revealed that COVID-19 information overload was positively related to cyber aggression, depression, and anxiety, parallelly and partially mediated this relationship. Moderated mediation analyses further indicated that Confucian responsibility thinking not only moderated the direct link between COVID-19 information overload and cyber aggression, with the effect being significant only for people with a low level of Confucian responsibility thinking, but also moderated the relationship between COVID-19 information overload and depression/anxiety respectively, with the associations being much more potent for individuals with low levels of Confucian responsibility thinking. These findings have the potential to inform the development of prevention and intervention programs designed to reduce the negative emotions and cyber aggression associated with information overload in public health events.
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spelling pubmed-88349122022-02-12 COVID-19 Information Overload and Cyber Aggression during the Pandemic Lockdown: The Mediating Role of Depression/Anxiety and the Moderating Role of Confucian Responsibility Thinking Wang, Qiong Luo, Xiao Tu, Ruilin Xiao, Tao Hu, Wei Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Many countries adopted lockdown measures to curb the spread of the outbreak in 2020, while information about COVID-19 has dominated various media outlets, which has led to information overload for people. However, previous research has mainly focused on cancer information overload and the corresponding consequence, and failed to examine its adverse effects in the context of major public health events. Based on the Frustrate Aggression Theory and the Scapegoat Theory, the present study established a moderated mediation model to investigate the emotional and behavioral outcomes of COVID-19 information overload. The mediating role of depression/anxiety in the association between COVID-19 information overload and cyber aggression, as well as the moderating role of Confucian responsibility thinking, were tested. This model was examined with 1005 Chinese people (mean age = 26.91 years, SD = 9.94) during the COVID-19 outbreak. Mediation analyses revealed that COVID-19 information overload was positively related to cyber aggression, depression, and anxiety, parallelly and partially mediated this relationship. Moderated mediation analyses further indicated that Confucian responsibility thinking not only moderated the direct link between COVID-19 information overload and cyber aggression, with the effect being significant only for people with a low level of Confucian responsibility thinking, but also moderated the relationship between COVID-19 information overload and depression/anxiety respectively, with the associations being much more potent for individuals with low levels of Confucian responsibility thinking. These findings have the potential to inform the development of prevention and intervention programs designed to reduce the negative emotions and cyber aggression associated with information overload in public health events. MDPI 2022-01-29 /pmc/articles/PMC8834912/ /pubmed/35162578 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19031540 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Wang, Qiong
Luo, Xiao
Tu, Ruilin
Xiao, Tao
Hu, Wei
COVID-19 Information Overload and Cyber Aggression during the Pandemic Lockdown: The Mediating Role of Depression/Anxiety and the Moderating Role of Confucian Responsibility Thinking
title COVID-19 Information Overload and Cyber Aggression during the Pandemic Lockdown: The Mediating Role of Depression/Anxiety and the Moderating Role of Confucian Responsibility Thinking
title_full COVID-19 Information Overload and Cyber Aggression during the Pandemic Lockdown: The Mediating Role of Depression/Anxiety and the Moderating Role of Confucian Responsibility Thinking
title_fullStr COVID-19 Information Overload and Cyber Aggression during the Pandemic Lockdown: The Mediating Role of Depression/Anxiety and the Moderating Role of Confucian Responsibility Thinking
title_full_unstemmed COVID-19 Information Overload and Cyber Aggression during the Pandemic Lockdown: The Mediating Role of Depression/Anxiety and the Moderating Role of Confucian Responsibility Thinking
title_short COVID-19 Information Overload and Cyber Aggression during the Pandemic Lockdown: The Mediating Role of Depression/Anxiety and the Moderating Role of Confucian Responsibility Thinking
title_sort covid-19 information overload and cyber aggression during the pandemic lockdown: the mediating role of depression/anxiety and the moderating role of confucian responsibility thinking
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8834912/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35162578
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19031540
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