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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Psychol.
Sec. Media Psychology
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1418504

How life circumstance in public health crises affect people to share and correct misinformation: A perspective of Third-person Effect

Provisionally accepted
Xiang Tian Xiang Tian 1,2*
  • 1 Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China
  • 2 shanghai jiaotong university, Shanghai, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Introduction: Misinformation spread on social media often parallels with public crises like the outbreak of COVID-19, because people's behaviors on misinformation may be influenced by the typical life circumstance. With the increasing severity of living conditions, misinformation is believed to be more widely spread, and corrective behaviors tend to decrease. Furthermore, social comparison also affects the perception of life circumstance and subsequent behaviors. Taking Shanghai's lockdown for COVID-19 as an example, this study examined whether the two representative factorsthe duration of the lockdown and the satisfaction with relief measuresaffected people to share and correct misinformation. By employing the Third-Person Effect theory, underlying social comparison mechanisms were also explored.Methods: An online survey was conducted in April 2022, when Zero-COVID policy was implemented in Shanghai. Besides questions about the life circumstance, Third-Person Perception scale, behaviors of sharing misinformation scale, and behaviors of correcting misinformation scale were included. Finally, 7962 valid responses were collected.Results: It is found that both behaviorssharing and correcting misinformation -were affected by life circumstance, but in distinct ways. The evidence also supported the existence of Third-Person Perception. The relationship between the satisfaction with relief measures and sharing behavior was shown to be mediated by Third-Person Perception.This study unveils that the proliferation of misinformation during the crises is related to the deterioration of people's perception of life circumstance. Social comparison often plays significant role, reflected as the Third-Person Effect.

    Keywords: misinformation, third-person effect, COVID-19, Health Communication, Shanghai's lockdown become increasingly severe imagine a situation that Other mechanisms (e.g Font: Bold Deleted: Table 1 Font: Not Bold

    Received: 16 Apr 2024; Accepted: 23 Sep 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Tian. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Xiang Tian, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.