The association between the risk perceptions of COVID-19, trust in the government, political ideologies, and socio-demographic factors: A year-long cross-sectional study in South Korea
Risk perception research, targeting the general public, necessitates the study of the multi-faceted aspects of perceived risk through a holistic approach. This study aimed to investigate the association between the two dimensions of risk perception of COVID-19, i.e., risk as a feeling and analysis,...
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Published in | PloS one Vol. 18; no. 6; p. e0280779 |
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Main Authors | , , , , , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
United States
Public Library of Science
21.06.2023
Public Library of Science (PLoS) |
Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | Risk perception research, targeting the general public, necessitates the study of the multi-faceted aspects of perceived risk through a holistic approach. This study aimed to investigate the association between the two dimensions of risk perception of COVID-19, i.e., risk as a feeling and analysis, trust in the current government, political ideologies, and socio-demographic factors in South Korea. This study used a year-long repeated cross-sectional design, in which a national sample (n = 23,018) participated in 23 consecutive telephone surveys from February 2020 to February 2021. Most factors differed in the magnitude and direction of their relationships with the two dimensions of risk perception. However, trust in the current government, alone, delineated an association in the same direction for both dimensions, i.e., those with a lower level of trust exhibited higher levels of cognitive and affective risk perception. Although these results did not change significantly during the one-year observation period, they are related to the political interpretation of risk. This study revealed that affective and cognitive risk perceptions addressed different dimensions of risk perception. These findings could help governments and health authorities better understand the nature and mechanisms of public risk perception when implementing countermeasures and policies in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and other public health emergencies. |
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Bibliography: | ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 Competing Interests: Jang DH is affiliated with Gallup Korea (https://www.gallup.co.kr/), but did not receive any funding from them for this. This does not alter our adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials. These authors contributed equally to this work and as co-first authors. YGC and WMJ also contributed equally to this work and as co-corresponding authors. |
ISSN: | 1932-6203 1932-6203 |
DOI: | 10.1371/journal.pone.0280779 |