ABSTRACT

The global pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) poses serious health risks to humans; yet, despite recommendations by governments and health organizations, a significant number of Americans are not engaging in preventive behaviors. To understand and explain this phenomenon, we seek guidance from a theoretical model that merges the risk information seeking and processing model and the theory of planned behavior. Furthermore, given the politicized nature of the pandemic in the U.S., we pose different information seeking patterns according to media partisanship, asserting that partisanship is likely to affect cognitive structures regarding COVID-19 decision making. Our results suggest two distinct routes for information seeking to decision-making. Conservative media use is directly associated with preventive behavior avoidance, while liberal media use is indirectly associated with preventive behavior engagement. This work contributes to our collective understanding of what drives preventive behaviors in the context of health risk, particularly in the case of a highly politicized national health crisis with global implications.

摘要

由 SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) 引起的全球大流行给人类带来了严重的健康风险；然而，尽管政府和卫生组织提出了建议，但仍有大量美国人没有采取预防措施。为了理解和解释这种现象，我们从一个融合了风险信息搜索和处理模型和计划行为理论的理论模型中寻求指导。此外，鉴于美国大流行的政治化性质，我们根据媒体的党派关系提出了不同的信息搜索模式，断言党派关系可能会影响有关 COVID-19 决策的认知结构。我们的结果为寻求决策的信息提供了两种不同的途径。保守的媒体使用与预防性行为避免直接相关，而自由媒体的使用与预防行为的参与间接相关。这项工作有助于我们对健康风险背景下的预防行为驱动因素的集体理解，特别是在具有全球影响的高度政治化的国家健康危机的情况下。