Abstract
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has sparked a major global crisis that has infected public social mentality. Drawing on the concept of peace of mind (PoM), a culture-specific positive emotion construct developed in the Chinese cultural context, this study explored the ways to build a positive public social mentality in the time of the pandemic. PoM is indicative of a calm and stable emotional state marked by self-control and spiritual cultivation and is believed to align with the perceptions of subjective well-being in Chinese or eastern cultures. A three-wave cross-lag study using an online questionnaire survey was conducted on 107 employees in Chinese enterprises during the pandemic. The research findings suggest that social support had a significant positive time-cross effect on later PoM, i.e., social support-T1 had a significant predictive effect on PoM-T2 (β = 0.16, SE = 0.09, p < 0.05) and social support-T2 had a significant predictive effect on PoM-T3 (β = 0.38, SE = 0.19, p < 0.05), whereas PoM failed to show a positive time-cross effect on later social support, i.e., the predictive effects of PoM-T1 on social support-T2 (β = 0.04, SE = 0.07, p > 0.05) and of PoM-T2 on social support-T3 (β = 0.13, SE = 0.09, p > 0.05) were not significant. This study provided a dynamic picture of the construction of public social mentality in the time of public health emergencies and also contributed to the research on PoM antecedents.
Highlights
The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has posed a serious challenge to public health, both physically and psychologically
The present study proposes that social support has the ability to promote the peace of mind (PoM) of individuals
Prior to validating the hypotheses, we tested a measurement model which included all the six latent variables (i.e., PoM and social support measured at the three points) as the baseline model
Summary
The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has posed a serious challenge to public health, both physically and psychologically. Construction of Positive Social Psychology on autonomous behavior and vague prospects, have jointly failed the public in perceiving the original public order promptly and clearly, which deteriorated into a variety of negative social emotions, such as group panic, anxiety, and irritability. One of the most distinguishing features is that the pandemic-inflicted social mentality is more noticeable and changeable with the development of the pandemic due to its urgency and a high degree of risk (Qin et al, 2020). In this regard, an unstable mentality has become a manifestation of public social psychology. It is critical to construct a positive social mentality in the prevention and control of the pandemic
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