Sookmyung Research Institute of Humanities, Sookmyung Women's University, 100 Cheongparo 47 gel, Yongsan-gu, Seoul, 04310, South Korea.
BK21Four Program, Department of Sociology, Yonsei University, 3-101, 84 Mapo-daero 11 gil, Mapo-gu, Seoul, 04133, South Korea.
BMC Public Health. 2024 Jun 4;24(1):1496. doi: 10.1186/s12889-024-19023-6.
The COVID-19 pandemic has been the most widespread and threatening health crisis experienced by the Korean society. Faced with an unprecedented threat to survival, society has been gripped by social fear and anger, questioning the culpability of this pandemic. This study explored the correlation between social cognitions and negative emotions and their changes in response to the severe events stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic in South Korea.
The analysis was based on a cognitive-emotional model that links fear and anger to the social causes that trigger them and used discursive content from comments posted on YouTube's COVID-19-related videos. A total of 182,915 comments from 1,200 videos were collected between January and December 2020. We performed data analyses and visualizations using R, Netminer 4.0, and Gephi software and calculated Pearson's correlation coefficients between emotions.
YouTube videos were analyzed for keywords indicating cognitive assessments of major events related to COVID-19 and keywords indicating negative emotions. Eight topics were identified through topic modeling: causes and risks, perceptions of China, media and information, infection prevention rules, economic activity, school and infection, political leaders, and religion, politics, and infection. The correlation coefficient between fear and anger was 0.462 (p < .001), indicating a moderate linear relationship between the two emotions. Fear was the highest from January to March in the first year of the COVID-19 outbreak, while anger occurred before and after the outbreak, with fluctuations in both emotions during this period.
This study confirmed that social cognitions and negative emotions are intertwined in response to major events related to the COVID-19 pandemic, with each emotion varying individually rather than being ambiguously mixed. These findings could aid in developing social cognition-emotion-based public health strategies through education and communication during future pandemic outbreaks.
COVID-19 大流行是韩国社会经历的最广泛和最具威胁的卫生危机。面对对生存的前所未有的威胁，社会充满了社会恐惧和愤怒，质疑这场大流行的罪责。本研究探讨了社会认知与负面情绪之间的相关性，以及它们对韩国 COVID-19 严重事件的反应变化。
分析基于将恐惧和愤怒与引发它们的社会原因联系起来的认知-情绪模型，并使用来自 YouTube 与 COVID-19 相关视频的评论中的话语内容。在 2020 年 1 月至 12 月期间，共收集了 1200 个视频的 182915 条评论。我们使用 R、Netminer 4.0 和 Gephi 软件进行数据分析和可视化，并计算了情绪之间的皮尔逊相关系数。
分析了 YouTube 视频中与 COVID-19 相关重大事件的认知评估和负面情绪的关键词。通过主题建模确定了 8 个主题：原因和风险、对中国的看法、媒体和信息、感染预防规则、经济活动、学校和感染、政治领导人以及宗教、政治和感染。恐惧和愤怒之间的相关系数为 0.462（p <.001），表明两种情绪之间存在中度线性关系。恐惧在 COVID-19 爆发的第一年的 1 月至 3 月最高，而愤怒发生在爆发前后，在此期间两种情绪都有波动。
本研究证实，社会认知与负面情绪在应对 COVID-19 大流行相关重大事件时相互交织，每种情绪单独变化，而不是模糊混合。这些发现可以通过在未来的大流行爆发期间通过教育和沟通，为制定基于社会认知-情绪的公共卫生策略提供帮助。
