Lippold Julia V, Laske Julia I, Hogeterp Svea A, Duke Éilish, Grünhage Thomas, Reuter Martin
Department of Psychology, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany.
Department of Psychology, University of Huddersfield, Huddersfield, United Kingdom.
Front Psychol. 2020 Sep 18;11:552305. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.552305. eCollection 2020.
Since the emergence of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in December 2019 about 500,000 people died within the first 6 months. The virus itself, as well as the related political decisions, intensified an increasing feeling of fear in billions of people worldwide. However, while some people remained unperturbed, others experienced panic over the current situation. In order to investigate individual differences in the perceptions, emotions and behaviors in response to the Coronavirus pandemic, an online survey was conducted between 6th and 27th of March 2020. Participants included 7309 individuals from 96 countries, who provided information on socio-demographics, personality, political orientation and general life satisfaction. To determine the specificity of fear of Coronavirus, we also investigated fear related to two other current political issues: the refugee and the climate crises. Overall, in parallel with the escalation of the pandemic, fear of Coronavirus increased significantly over the 22-day period, with the strongest predictors being the personality variable neuroticism, as well as education, sex and being an at-risk person. A detailed longitudinal analysis of the largest sample, Germany, revealed that political orientation was also an important predictor of fear of Coronavirus. Specifically, conservatives were more afraid of Coronavirus than liberals. However, as the perceived threat of the virus increased, the influence of political orientation disappeared, whereas personality remained a stable predictor. The pattern of results regarding the perceived threat of the refugee and climate crises painted a different picture: political orientation was by far the best predictor, more important even than personality. Conservatives were more worried about the refugees, and liberals about climate change. Cross-cultural analyses showed pronounced differences between countries, dependent on the crisis. Nonetheless, the importance of personality for the prediction of fear of Coronavirus remained stable over time and across the world within the investigated 22-day period.
自2019年12月新型冠状病毒肺炎大流行出现以来，在最初的6个月内约有50万人死亡。病毒本身以及相关的政治决策加剧了全球数十亿人日益增长的恐惧情绪。然而，有些人保持镇定，而另一些人则对当前形势感到恐慌。为了调查在应对冠状病毒大流行时人们在认知、情绪和行为上的个体差异，于2020年3月6日至27日进行了一项在线调查。参与者包括来自96个国家的7309个人，他们提供了有关社会人口统计学、个性、政治倾向和总体生活满意度的信息。为了确定对冠状病毒恐惧的特异性，我们还调查了与另外两个当前政治问题相关的恐惧：难民危机和气候危机。总体而言，随着大流行的升级，在这22天里对冠状病毒的恐惧显著增加，最强的预测因素是个性变量神经质，以及教育程度、性别和是否属于高危人群。对最大样本德国进行的详细纵向分析显示，政治倾向也是对冠状病毒恐惧的一个重要预测因素。具体而言，保守派比自由派更害怕冠状病毒。然而，随着对病毒感知威胁的增加，政治倾向的影响消失了，而个性仍然是一个稳定的预测因素。关于难民危机和气候危机感知威胁的结果模式呈现出不同的情况：政治倾向是迄今为止最好的预测因素，甚至比个性更重要。保守派更担心难民问题，自由派更担心气候变化问题。跨文化分析表明，不同国家之间存在明显差异，这取决于危机情况。尽管如此，在调查的22天内，个性对于预测对冠状病毒的恐惧的重要性在不同时间和全球范围内都保持稳定。
