Undergraduate Research and Creative Activities Journal

Given most people gain information about COVID-19 from news media, it is important to understand if news framing of COVID-19 can influence people’s intentions to take preventive behaviors and their actual behaviors, which may affect public health and many people’s life safety. Based on framing and functional emotion theory, this research examined how exposure to differently framed news (threat, positive future, or neutral news) influenced emotional reactions, intentions to take preventive action, and actual subsequent protective behaviors. 196 undergraduates participated in a two-part online experiment. First, they read two COVID-related news stories appropriate to their condition, and then reported their emotional reactions and behavioral intentions. Two days later, they reported their COVID-related protective behaviors. Results indicated that threat news in the frame of fear evoked fear as expected and positive future frames in the frame of hope evoked hope, as expected. Although frames did not directly influence intentions or behaviors, indirect effects were found such that threat frames generated fear, fear influenced behavioral intentions, and intentions predicted behavior 2 days later.