Open AccessPublic moral motivation during the COVID-19 pandemic: Analysis of posts on Chinese social media
Author(s) -
Liang Zhao,
Xiaojun Ding,
Feng Yu
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
social behavior and personality
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.362
H-Index - 58
eISSN - 1179-6391
pISSN - 0301-2212
DOI - 10.2224/sbp.9829
Subject(s) - morality , psychology , pandemic , agency (philosophy) , context (archaeology) , social psychology , moral agency , covid-19 , moral disengagement , criminology , sociology , political science , social science , law , history , medicine , disease , archaeology , pathology , infectious disease (medical specialty)
As COVID-19 struck worldwide, we were inspired by behavioral immune system theory and wondered whether there would be changes to public morality brought about by the pandemic. We tracked public reactions through posts on Chinese social media to analyze the dynamics of public moral motivation. Big data analysis shows that the impact of disaster upon moral motivation was context-sensitive. The level of the severity of the disaster played a leading role in variation of moral motivation. We found that disaster increased moral motivation only when the situation was severe, and such augmentation rapidly faded when the disaster was under control and recovery began. The sentiment of news shared during the pandemic played a regulating role, such that positive or encouraging news helped augment moral motivation only when the situation was severe. Finally, we found that the pandemic increased expressions of both agency and communion in a similar way to that of moral motivation.