Building on the health belief model (HBM), this research tests, over six months, how the exposure to COVID-related information in the media affects fear, which in turn conditions beliefs about the severity of the virus, susceptibility of getting the virus, and benefits of safety measures. These health beliefs ultimately lead to social distancing and panic buying. As a first contribution, we find that fear is not directly triggered by the objective severity of a crisis, but rather formed over time by the way individuals are exposed to media. Second, we show that fear affects behaviors through the components of the HBM which relate to the risks/benefits of a situation. Last, we find that critical thinking about media content amplifies the “adaptive” responses of our model (e.g., health beliefs, social distancing) and reduces its “maladaptive” responses (e.g., panic buying). Interestingly, we note that the beneficial effect of critical thinking about media content disappears as the level of fear increases over time. The implications of these findings for policymakers, media companies, and theory are further discussed.

在健康信念模型 (HBM) 的基础上，这项研究测试了六个月以上，媒体中与 COVID 相关的信息的曝光如何影响恐惧，这反过来又影响了人们对病毒严重性、感染病毒的易感性、和安全措施的好处。这些健康观念最终导致社会疏远和恐慌性购买。作为第一个贡献，我们发现恐惧不是由危机的客观严重性直接引发的，而是随着时间的推移个人接触媒体的方式形成的。其次，我们表明恐惧通过 HBM 的组成部分影响行为，这些组成部分与情况的风险/收益相关。最后，我们发现对媒体内容的批判性思考放大了我们模型的“适应性”反应（例如，健康信念，社会距离）并减少其“适应不良”反应（例如恐慌性购买）。有趣的是，我们注意到随着恐惧程度的增加，对媒体内容进行批判性思考的有益效果会随着时间的推移而消失。进一步讨论了这些发现对决策者、媒体公司和理论的影响。