Empirical and Social Anxiety about the covid-19 pandemic: Measurement, Diagnosis, Modelling

Abstract

The article contains the results of a survey conducted among students of two higher education institutions: University of Bielsko-Biała (ATH) and Cavalry Captain Witold Pilecki State University of Małopolska in Oświęcim (MUP). The study utilises the achievements of economics and sociology in the field of behavioural modelling through the public communication ecosystem. Based on the R. Dunbar’s social brain model and D. Kahneman’s dual-system theory, a new model of attitude measurement was introduced. The model was used to determine the empirical level of anxiety about the Sars-CoV-2 virus. The diagnostic purpose of the study required the operational definition of such research categories as: baseline anxiety, empirical anxiety, social anxiety, modelled sample range, baseline mortality rate, and empirical mortality rate. The scale and base parameters for the studied phenomenon were established on the basis of the official statistical data on Covid-19 mortality in Poland. The results of the study indicate a significant difference in the perception of the primary pandemic risk; the primary picture of risk (empirically observed mortality rate) turned out to be 57 times lower than the secondary picture of risk (official mortality rate). The conclusions of the study illustrate the phenomenon of communication dissonance and behavioural modelling during the Covid-19 pandemic.