JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Previous studies on public compliance with policies during pandemics have primarily explained it from the perspectives of motivation theory, focusing on normative motivation and instrumental motivation - trust in policy-making institutions or fear of contracting the disease. The social amplification of risk framework emphasizes the crucial role of information acquisition.

Objective:

This study aims to integrate the motivation theory of compliance behavior and the social amplification of risk framework to uncover the "black box" of the mechanisms by which calculative motivation and normative motivation influence public policy compliance behavior throughthe use of different types of information.

Methods:

An online survey was conducted among 2,309 Chinese citizens from December 2022 to March 2023 during the COVID-19 pandemic. Policy compliance behavior was measured by wearing masks, hand washing, maintaining social distance, and accepting COVID-19 vaccination as dependent variables. The independent variable, information usage, is divided into the use of authoritative information (including government television news, business website and news apps such as Sina Weibo, and health agency website such as expert) and the use of non-authoritative information (including family and friends, short video apps such as TikTok, and social media such as QQ and WeChat). Government trust served as a mediator for normative motivation while risk perception mediated computational motivation. A structural equation model was employed for analysis.

Results:

Firstly, government trust mediated the effect of authoritative information on enhancing individual compliance behavior significantly; however,government trust has no significant mediating effect on non-authoritative information. Secondly, risk perception mediated the effect of non-authoritative information on increasing individual compliance significantly; yet it did not mediate authoritative information's influence. Thirdly, there was a chain mediation effect where authoritative information increased government trust while reducing risk perception leading to decreased compliance behavior.

Conclusions:

By combining the motivation theory of compliance behavior with the social amplification of risk framework in risk communication, we found that government trust, as a normative motivation, operates through authoritative information, while risk perception, as a calculative motivation, promotes compliance behavior through non-authoritative information platforms. Additionally, in major crises, the public's use of authoritative information can lead to the "trust paradox": on one hand, trust in the government increases policy compliance; on the other hand, this trust reduces risk perception, thereby decreasing compliance behavior. Authoritative institutions need to balance providing authoritative information with maintaining public risk perception.