Background Despite worldwide calls for precautionary measures to combat COVID-19, the public’s preventive intention still varies significantly among different regions. Exploring the influencing factors of the public’s preventive intention is very important to curtail the spread of COVID-19. Previous studies have found that fear can effectively improve the public’s preventive intention, but they ignore the impact of differences in cultural values. The present study examines the combined effect of fear and collectivism on the public’s preventive intention towards COVID-19 through the analysis of social media big data. Methods The Sina microblog posts of 108,914 active users from Chinese mainland 31 provinces were downloaded. The data was retrieved from January 11 to February 21, 2020. Afterwards, we conducted a province-level analysis of the contents of downloaded posts. Three lexicons were applied to automatically recognise the scores of fear, collectivism, and preventive intention of 31 provinces. After that, a multiple regression model was established to examine the combined effect of fear and collectivism on the public’s preventive intention towards COVID-19. The simple slope test and the Johnson-Neyman technique were used to test the interaction of fear and collectivism on preventive intention. Results The study reveals that: (a) both fear and collectivism can positively predict people’s preventive intention and (b) there is an interaction of fear and collectivism on people’s preventive intention, where fear and collectivism reduce each other’s positive influence on people’s preventive intention. Conclusion The promotion of fear on people’s preventive intention may be limited and conditional, and values of collectivism can well compensate for the promotion of fear on preventive intention. These results provide scientific inspiration on how to enhance the public’s preventive intention towards COVID-19 effectively.

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Background Despite worldwide calls for precautionary measures to combat COVID-19, the public’s preventive intention still varies significantly among different regions. Exploring the influencing factors of the public’s preventive intention is very important to curtail the spread of COVID-19. Previous studies have found that fear can effectively improve the public’s preventive intention, but they ignore the impact of differences in cultural values. The present study examines the combined effect of fear and collectivism on public’s preventive intention towards COVID-19 through the analysis of social media big data. Methods The Sina microblog posts of 108,914 active users from Chinese mainland 31 provinces were downloaded. The data was retrieved from 11 January 2020 to 21 February 2020. Afterwards, we conducted a province-level analysis on the contents of downloaded posts. Three lexicons were applied to automatically recognise the scores of fear, collectivism and preventive intention of 31 provinces. Thereafter, a multiple regression model were established to examine the combined effect of fear and collectivism on public’s preventive intention towards COVID-19. The simple slope test and the Johnson-Neyman technique were used to test the interaction of fear and collectivism on preventive intention. Results The study reveals that: (a) both fear and collectivism can positively predict people’s preventive intention (fear: β = 0.324, t = 11.685, p < 0.001; collectivism: β = 0.284, t = 10.433, p < 0.001) and (b) there is an interaction of fear and collectivism on people’s preventive intention (β = −0.134, t = − 5.963, p < 0.001), where fear and collectivism reduce each other’s positive influence on people’s preventive intention. Conclusion The promotion of fear on people’s preventive intention may be limited and conditional, and values of collectivism can well compensate for the promotion of fear on preventive intention. These results provide scientific inspiration on how to effectively enhance the public’s preventive intention towards COVID-19. For example, ‘Keeping social distance can protect you and your family from infection’ may be a more effective communication strategy than ‘Keeping social distance can protect you from infection’.

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Background: Despite worldwide calls for precautionary measures to combat COVID-19, the public's preventive intention still varies significantly among different regions. Exploring the influencing factors of the public's preventive intention is very important to curtail the spread of COVID-19. Previous studies have found that fear can effectively improve the public's preventive intention, but they ignore the impact of differences in cultural values. The present study examines the combined effect of fear and collectivism on the public's preventive intention towards COVID-19 through the analysis of social media big data.Methods: The Sina microblog posts of 108,914 active users from Chinese mainland 31 provinces were downloaded. The data was retrieved from January 11 to February 21 2020. Afterwards, we conducted a province-level analysis of the contents of downloaded posts. Three lexicons were applied to automatically recognise the scores of fear, collectivism, and preventive intention of 31 provinces. After that, a multiple regression model was established to examine the combined effect of fear and collectivism on the public's preventive intention towards COVID-19. The simple slope test and the Johnson-Neyman technique were used to test the interaction of fear and collectivism on preventive intention.Results: The study reveals that: (a) both fear and collectivism can positively predict people's preventive intention and (b) there is an interaction of fear and collectivism on people's preventive intention, where fear and collectivism reduce each other's positive influence on people's preventive intention.Conclusion: The promotion of fear on people's preventive intention may be limited and conditional, and values of collectivism can well compensate for the promotion of fear on preventive intention. These results provide scientific inspiration on how to enhance the public's preventive intention towards COVID-19 effectively.