Public risk perception and coping response to COVID-19 is moderated by positive emotions: Evidence from Chinese college students

Abstract

Background: People tend to develop serious psychological problems if they perceive the threat of a special disease. Seeking and contributing risk perception has laid the groundwork for studies that explore public response in the face of a health emergency, and are helpful for the understanding of students by determining how positive emotions(PE) moderates COVID-19-related risk perception(CRP) and can further lead to an improvement in coping response to COVID-19(CRC). We still have little knowledgeResults: There were a moderating relationship between CRP and positive-coping behavior(PCB) and moderating relationship between CRP and risk-taking behavior(RTB) through PE. Two interactive effects were identified. First, CRP was positively predicting PCB interacting with observed PE). Second, COVID-19-related risk perception interacted with observed PE predicting risk-taking behavior(RTB)Conclusions: The current study established a moderated model to explore the influence mechanism of CRP on two categories of coping response. For public health managers, they should have different coping response behavior and addressed the moderating role of PE in the process of coping with a public health emergency.