Dual-Path Effect of Mortality Salience Induced by COVID-19 on Food Safety Behavior in China

During the pandemic, the mortality salience of COVID-19 has affected everyone. The public is extremely sensitive to food safety, especially cold chain food and imported food. This research is based on the terror management theory, protective motivation theory, and self-construal theory. It proposes an integrated dual-path framework to explore the different mechanisms that mortality salience has on food safety behavior. The result of three experiments verified our conjectures. First, mortality salience positively affects individuals’ food safety behavior. More importantly, we found the dual-path mechanism that underlies the effect, that is, the mediating of self-protective motivation and prosocial motivation. In addition, different self-construals make the confirmed effect clear. These findings provide implications for the government to protect public food safety and health.