Li Danfeng, Wu Mengli, Chao Baolige, Zhang Li
School of Sociology and Psychology, Central University of Finance and Economics, Beijing, China.
Int J Disaster Risk Reduct. 2022 Nov;82:103321. doi: 10.1016/j.ijdrr.2022.103321. Epub 2022 Sep 30.
The current study is to explore the associations between the threat to life and risk-taking behaviors across different domains during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), and the role of the perceived threat and coping efficacy in these associations based on protection motivation theory. This study conducted an online survey on 2983 participants from 30 provinces in China. It found that people's risk-taking behaviors in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic could be divided into stimulating risk-taking (SRT) behaviors and instrumental risk-taking (IRT) behaviors. The exposure level to the COVID-19 pandemic was negatively related to SRT behaviors in natural/physical, gambling, safety, moral, and reproductive domains, but not related to IRT behaviors in financial and corporation/competition domains. Two parallel routes were found in domain-specific risk-taking behaviors when people were faced with a life-threatening epidemic. Specifically, perceived threat consistently mediated the positive relationship between exposure level and risk-taking behaviors across domains. In contrast, coping efficacy mediated the negative relationship between exposure level and SRT behaviors but positive associations with IRT behaviors. These findings indicated that coping efficacy, rather than perceived threat is the factor that explains the people's domain-specific risk-taking behaviors in the context of the epidemic. The study holds implications for emergency policy-making that targets disaster risk reduction by increasing the public coping efficacy, which could prevent unnecessary SRT behaviors and improve necessary IRT behaviors in business and investment for economic recoveries.
本研究旨在探讨新型冠状病毒肺炎（COVID-19）疫情期间生命威胁与不同领域冒险行为之间的关联，以及基于保护动机理论的感知威胁和应对效能在这些关联中的作用。本研究对来自中国30个省份的2983名参与者进行了在线调查。研究发现，在COVID-19大流行之后，人们的冒险行为可分为刺激性冒险（SRT）行为和工具性冒险（IRT）行为。COVID-19大流行的暴露水平与自然/身体、赌博、安全、道德和生殖领域的SRT行为呈负相关，但与金融和公司/竞争领域的IRT行为无关。当人们面临危及生命的疫情时，在特定领域的冒险行为中发现了两条平行路径。具体而言，感知威胁始终介导了暴露水平与各领域冒险行为之间的正相关关系。相比之下，应对效能介导了暴露水平与SRT行为之间的负相关关系，但与IRT行为呈正相关。这些发现表明，在疫情背景下，解释人们特定领域冒险行为的因素是应对效能，而非感知威胁。该研究对旨在通过提高公众应对效能来降低灾害风险的应急政策制定具有启示意义，这可以预防不必要的SRT行为，并改善商业和投资中必要的IRT行为以促进经济复苏。
