Anxiety Talking: Does Anxiety Predict Sharing Information about COVID-19?

Resumen

Could fear and anxiety play a functional role during the COVID-19 pandemic by driving greater information sharing about the viral threat? To explore whether anxiety may serve as a unique emotional indicator of sharing information in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we used a representative sample of the United States from the American Trends Panel (N=9,188) conducted April 20th-26th, 2020. Participants reported how they have felt in the past week, where they got their news about the outbreak from, and whether they had posted COVID-19 news on social media or discussed the pandemic with others. Even after controlling for other emotions, news sources, and a range of demographic measures, feeling anxious—more so that other negative emotions, such as feeling depressed—predicted greater information sharing on social media (𝛽 = .05, p < .001) and beyond (𝛽 = .14, p < .001). These findings are consistent with functionalist theories of emotion, which predict that fear and anxiety play a unique role in both identifying and communicating threats to oneself and to others.

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Cómo citar (APA 7)

Cantwell, O., & Kushlev, K. (2020). Anxiety Talking: Does Anxiety Predict Sharing Information about COVID-19?. https://doi.org/10.1037/tmb0000057