The impact of pandemic mental cognition on cultural values: an empirical study based on social media

Liuling Mo; Yun Liu; Ang Li; Tianli Liu; Tingshao Zhu

doi:10.1186/s12889-023-16006-x

The impact of pandemic mental cognition on cultural values: an empirical study based on social media

BMC Public Health. 2023 Jun 5;23(1):1069. doi: 10.1186/s12889-023-16006-x.

Authors

Liuling Mo^#^{1

2}, Yun Liu^#^{1

2

3}, Ang Li⁴, Tianli Liu⁵, Tingshao Zhu^{6

7}

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100101, China.
² Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China.
³ Dalian Vocational &Technical College, Dalian, 116035, China.
⁴ Department of Psychology, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing, 100083, China.
⁵ Institute of Population Research, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China.
⁶ Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100101, China. tszhu@psych.ac.cn.
⁷ Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China. tszhu@psych.ac.cn.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Background: COVID-19 has triggered a global public health crisis, and had an impact on economies, societies, and politics around the world. Based on the pathogen prevalence hypothesis suggested that residents of areas with higher infection rates are more likely to be collectivists as compared with those of areas with lower infection rates. Many researchers had studied the direct link between infectious diseases and individualism/collectivism (infectious diseases→ cultural values), but no one has focused on the specific psychological factors between them: (infectious diseases→ cognition of the pandemic→ cultural values). To test and develop the pathogen prevalence hypothesis, we introduced pandemic mental cognition and conducted an empirical study on social media (Chinese Sina Weibo), hoping to explore the psychological reasons behind in cultural value changes in the context of a pandemic.

Methods: We downloaded all posts from active Sina Weibo users in Dalian during the pandemic period (January 2020 to May 2022) and used dictionary-based approaches to calculate frequency of words from two domains (pandemic mental cognition and collectivism/individualism), respectively. Then we used the multiple log-linear regression analysis method to establish the relationship between pandemic mental cognition and collectivism/individualism.

Results: Among three dimensions of pandemic mental cognition, only the sense of uncertainty had a significant positive relationship with collectivism, and also had a marginal significant positive relationship with individualism. There was a significant positive correlation between the first-order lag term AR(1) and individualism, which means the individualism tendency was mainly affected by its previous level.

Conclusions: The study found that more collectivist regions are associated with a higher pathogen burden, and recognized the sense of uncertainty as its underlying cause. Results of this study validated and further developed the pathogen stress hypothesis in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Keywords: COVID-19; Cultural values; Pandemic mental cognition; Pathogen stress hypothesis; Sense of uncertainty.

MeSH terms

COVID-19* / epidemiology
Cognition
Communicable Diseases* / epidemiology
Humans
Pandemics
Social Media*