Rethinking the Role of Affect in Risk Judgment: What We Have Learned From COVID-19 During the First Week of Quarantine in Italy

Due to COVID-19 spreading in Italy, on March 11 the Prime Minister of Italy declared\r\na lockdown and imposed severe restrictive measures impacting citizens’ freedom at\r\nseveral levels. People were required to stay at home and go out only to satisfy basic\r\nneeds. Several risk models have postulated a link among online searching behavior,\r\naffect, anxiety, and complaints by individuals toward government restrictions (GR), which\r\nemerged as also related to an increased perception of knowledge toward risk. However,\r\nto date, no study has addressed how these key risk-related aspects (i.e., affect, anxiety,\r\nperceived knowledge on risk, and risk dimensions) can act jointly to orient online health\r\ninformation-seeking behavior, and people’s complaints toward GR imposed during the\r\nlockdown. This study investigated the mechanisms underlying online health informationseeking\r\nbehavior and people’s complaints toward the government’s restrictions during\r\na COVID-19 emergency in the Italian population. Drawing from the health belief\r\nmodel (HBM), which postulates a link between sociodemographic variables, risk, and\r\naffect dimensions in emergency, we assumed risk factors as predictors of affect and\r\nanxiety, which, in turn, were posited as mediators between risk dimensions, online\r\nhealth information-seeking behavior, and complaints toward GR. Participants (1,031)\r\nwere involved during the first week of the quarantine (March 11–18) and completed\r\nan online survey composed of (i) an adapted version of the Italian Risk Perception\r\nQuestionnaire; (ii) the Italian Positive (PA) and Negative Affect (NA) Schedule (PANAS-\r\n10); (iii) the State Anxiety Scale (STAI-Y1); (iv) ad hoc personal knowledge measure about\r\nnovel coronavirus; (v) ad hoc item measuring information search behavior regarding\r\nthe novel coronavirus; (vi) ad hoc measure of the complains regarding GR; and (vii)\r\nsociodemographic questions. General linear models and structural equation modeling\r\n(SEM) were carried out to test the model. Sociodemographic and cognitive factors\r\npredicted the participants’ affect and anxiety, which, in turn, motivated and fully\r\nmediated both information search behavior and complaint toward GR. This research\r\ncan offer useful suggestions for policy-makers during the COVID-19 emergency, and it\r\nadvanced the knowledge on the risk–emotion link in emergency situations.