How Government Actions Influence People’s Intentions to Share on Social Media During Shanghai’s Lockdown for COVID-19: A Third-Person Effect Perspective

During the COVID-19 pandemic, China’s “Zero-COVID” policy and strong government actions led to significant disruptions in daily life. Using Shanghai’s 2022 lockdown as an example, this study investigated how the government’s actions influenced people’s intentions to share information about risks and content with positive emotions. By employing the Third-Person Effect theory, this study further explores the underlying socio-psychological mechanism. A survey was conducted with 7,962 participants, and multiple linear regressions and structural equation models were applied to analyze the data. We found that (1) the policies that led to inconvenience whetted the dissemination of risk information and restricted the sharing of positive-emotion content; (2) “status-led” motivation was the critical reason why people shared both types of messages; and (3) Third-Person Perception mediated both of these influences. These findings expand our understanding of social communication during public health crises, particularly how the Third-Person Effect works. Plain language summary During Shanghai’s lockdown for COVID-19, did government actions like restriction of going out and delivery of relief packages influence people’s intentions to share information on social media? The answer might be “Yes,” and people tended to compare themselves with others when considering such issues During public crises like the COVID-19 pandemic, information about the risk is usually the primary type of messages disseminated on social media. People also tend to share content with positive emotions to encourage each other. In China, the “Zero-COVID” policy during 2020 to 2022 led to significant disruptions in daily life, and consequently influenced people’s behaviors on social media. Such potent governmental behaviors offered a typical social circumstance which allowed scholars to examine the influence of the influence of government’s actions on people’s behaviors on social media. We conducted a large-scale online survey and collected 7,962 valid replies during Shanghai’s lockdown in 2022, which was regarded as the hardest time of the 3-year pandemic in China. It was found that, the policies that led to inconvenience substantially whetted the dissemination of information about the risk, and hindered the sharing of content with positive emotions. Confronting different government’s actions, people perceived different potential effects of the information. Those who suffered relatively less inconven