Subjects: Other Disciplines >> Synthetic discipline submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《中国科学院院刊》
Abstract: “Psychological typhoon eye” (PTE) effect describes the public’s irrational panic and response to major emergencies. This phenomenon is reported and named by LI Shu and his colleagues after the Wenchuan earthquake. During the outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020, we conducted a worldwide survey to investigate the safety concerns and risk perception of the COVID-19 epidemic from participants staying in five areas of different levels of risk (high-risk, moderate and high-risk, moderate-risk, low-risk, and very lowrisk areas). This effect appears to hold for COVID-19. Specifically, participants staying abroad showed more safety concerns or fears of the COVID-19 epidemic than participants staying in China. The people at zero distance were at the center of the PTE and were the most calm. On the basis of the cumulative findings on the PTE, we propose four targeted solutions for individuals and organizations with the power of discourse to improve the quality of risk communication and management.
Subjects: Psychology >> Applied Psychology Subjects: Safety Science and Technology >> Public Safety submitted time 2020-07-14
Abstract: Terrorist attacks can occur anywhere. As the threat of terrorism develops, the China–Eurasia Expo held in Urumqi, China, is attracting fewer potential visitors. A nationwide survey of 2034 residents from 31 provinces/municipalities in China was conducted to examine the relation between the distance to respondents’ city of residence from Urumqi and their levels of concern for safety and security concerning the expo. The two were found to be positively related: the closer the respondents lived to ?rümqi, the less concerned they were with the safety and security of the expo. This is consistent with the ‘psychological typhoon eye’ effect, which states that people living closer to the centre of an unfortunate event (whether natural or man-made hazards) are less concerned with the event’s negative consequences. This effect appears to hold for terrorism. There are implications of this finding for international counter-terrorism practice, tourism, and research.
Peer Review Status:Awaiting Review