Department of Management, Hunan Police Academy, Changsha, China.
Department of Student Affairs, Hunan First Normal University, Changsha, China.
Front Public Health. 2024 Oct 8;12:1455818. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1455818. eCollection 2024.
As a real mortality salience, a public crisis would have a major impact on individual minds, behaviors, and lifestyles. COVID-19 provides us with a stark real-world example to understand these implications. Previous research has revealed that some individuals become more willing to help the infected at the risk of their own lives, while others become more self-centered and indifferent during COVID-19. To explain this paradoxical phenomenon, our study used two rival mediators in the relationship between mortality salience and helping behavior during COVID-19: death anxiety and death reflection.
A cross-sectional survey was conducted among Chinese college students (N = 684) during the pandemic. We used a parallel mediation model to explore the mediating roles of death anxiety and death reflection in the relationship between mortality salience and helping behavior during COVID-19.
The results of our study indicate two key findings. First, mortality salience is negatively related to helping behavior during COVID-19 via death anxiety. This suggests that individuals with higher levels of mortality salience experienced increased death anxiety, which in turn led to a decrease in helping behavior. Second, mortality salience is positively related to helping behavior during COVID-19 via death reflection. This indicates that individuals with higher levels of mortality salience engaged in deeper reflection on death, which subsequently resulted in an increase in helping behavior.
Our study provides valuable insights into the complex relationship between mortality salience and helping behaviors in the time of public crisis, and can help lead to more positive attitudes toward public crisis events such as COVID-19.
作为一种真实的死亡凸显，公共危机将对个人的思想、行为和生活方式产生重大影响。COVID-19 为我们提供了一个严峻的现实世界的例子，以了解这些影响。先前的研究表明，一些人在冒着自己生命的危险更愿意帮助感染者，而另一些人在 COVID-19 期间变得更加以自我为中心和冷漠。为了解释这种矛盾的现象，我们的研究在 COVID-19 期间死亡凸显与帮助行为之间的关系中使用了两个相互竞争的中介：死亡焦虑和死亡反思。
在疫情期间，对中国大学生（N=684）进行了横断面调查。我们使用平行中介模型来探讨死亡凸显与 COVID-19 期间帮助行为之间的关系中死亡焦虑和死亡反思的中介作用。
我们的研究结果表明了两个关键发现。首先，死亡凸显通过死亡焦虑与 COVID-19 期间的帮助行为呈负相关。这表明，死亡凸显水平较高的个体经历了更高的死亡焦虑，这反过来又导致帮助行为减少。其次，死亡凸显与 COVID-19 期间的帮助行为呈正相关通过死亡反思。这表明，死亡凸显水平较高的个体对死亡进行了更深入的反思，这反过来又导致帮助行为增加。
我们的研究为公共危机时期死亡凸显与帮助行为之间的复杂关系提供了有价值的见解，并有助于对 COVID-19 等公共危机事件产生更积极的态度。
