The COVID-19 pandemic has given rise to unprecedented transformations in consumer behaviour. Less is known about how consumers react to privacy stress while being compelled to continuously purchase online during the pandemic. Therefore, underpinned by the stimulus-organism-response (SOR) theory, this paper aims to examine the impacts of perceived Internet risk, self-efficacy, privacy stress, and trust on consumers’ continuous purchasing intention in China. Few studies have examined the mediating roles of privacy stress and brand trust in continuous purchasing intention. This research thus adds value by exploring the underlying mechanisms that explain how these factors affect purchasing intention where consumers have little choice but to make purchase online continuously. It employs a quantitative research design and uses a survey questionnaire to collect data. A total of 535 consumers responded and the data were analysed via PLS-SEM. We found mixed results for the direct and indirect paths. Perceived Internet risk, platform trust, and self-efficacy showed significant impacts on privacy stress and brand trust. While brand trust had a significant impact on continuous online purchase intention, contrary to previous literature, privacy stress did not. Moreover, while brand trust was found to be a significant mediator, privacy stress exerted no mediating effect. The results assist marketing practitioners, organizations, and policymakers in improving consumers’ online shopping experience in uncertain times by addressing the issues of trust and privacy. Specifically, we provide the foundation for future policies and strategies that build consumers’ trust and secure consumers’ privacy, especially in highly uncertain contexts.
AIDS orphans separated from their siblings suffered from increased psychological distress compared with those who remained with their siblings. The data in the current study suggest that care arrangement for AIDS orphan should include accommodating the siblings together or providing them with opportunities for frequent contact and/or communication with each other. Appropriate psychological counselling should be given to those orphans experiencing sibling separation.
During prolonged social isolation, media exposure is often intensified increases as individuals turn to the Internet, social media, television, and newspapers for information, communication, entertainment, and more. This exploratory study explores the correlations among media use, anxiety, and wellbeing in China during the COVID-19 pandemic. A survey questionnaire was designed to measure the following five constructs: media dependency, media attention, anxiety, wellbeing, and collectivism. A total of 722 respondents in China participated in the survey from November 2020 to December 2020. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to analyze the data. Our findings indicate that respondents who report collectivist norms tend to experience higher levels of wellbeing (and lower levels of anxiety), regardless of their scores for media use, media attention, or media dependency. Conversely, those respondents who record low collectivism tend to have higher levels of anxiety (and lower wellbeing), even if they report lower media use, attention and dependency during the pandemic. Study results also found that anxiety mediates the relationship between media use and wellbeing. Our introduction of collectivism as a possible moderating variable represents a significant contribution to current academic debates and suggests the inclusion of cultural factors for future studies on media use and anxiety/wellbeing during public health crises.
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused disruption not only in the global health and economic sectors, but also in the field of journalism. As media has played and continues to play a pivotal role in disseminating information during the pandemic crisis, it is critical to examine how media influences the behaviour of their target audience. Subsequently, this study aimed to examine the relationship between media attention, dependency, self-efficacy, and prosocial behaviours amid the COVID-19 pandemic. A total of 905 participants from China responded to the survey questionnaire, the data from which was analysed via SPSS-AMOS v.23. The results indicated a significant correlation between media attention and self-efficacy. Likewise, media dependency is correlated with self-efficacy. Media attention, dependency, and self-efficacy demonstrated significant effects on prosocial attitudes and behaviours. Subsequently, this study showed that self-efficacy mediates the effects of media attention and dependency on prosocial behaviour. At the time of the COVID-19 pandemic, the findings of this study could serve as a guide to media practitioners in shaping the behaviour of their audience through meaningful and responsible information dissemination.
This paper aims to disclose the influence of different ambient pressures over the smoke flow and smoke ventilation in the shaft tunnel. For this purpose, numerical simulations were carried out on the shaft tunnel, using Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS), a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software package. The results show that: Under the same fire power, the smoke of tunnel fire spread faster and faster, with the falling ambient pressure. The longitudinal temperature curves of tunnel fire have basically the same features, at different ambient pressures. With the increase of ambient pressure, the longitudinal smoke temperature on the roof of the shaft tunnel gradually declines. The declining rate is positively correlated with the proximity to the fire source. Compared with that in small power fire, the roof temperature difference between low pressure and normal pressure is large in large power fire. The CO concentration in the shaft falls with the rise of ambient pressure. The smoke ventilation efficiency is better in the low-pressure environment, which facilitates the ventilation of fire smoke. The increase of fire power enhances the horizontal inertial force of smoke, and reduces the probability of plug holing. In addition, the ambient pressure has a small effect on the shaft smoke ventilation in small power fire.
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