China is the first country to report Coronavirus in the world. On January 23, China closed off the city of Wuhan, the capital of Hubei Province in the central part of China. Following the close-off of Wuhan, China urged its people to stay within their city, condominiums and apartments. During the outbreak of the Coronavirus pandemic in China, people were fearful of the unknown infectious disease, and uncertain about their health safety. With the strict quarantine policies in place everywhere in China, Chinese people were restricted within their condominiums and apartments, and lived boring and dull lives. Against such a background, social support from various sources are critical for people to maintain their subjective well-being and maintain positive over the future development of the situation. This pandemic takes place in the age of social media, and Chinese people consume and share, in both online and offline venues, information related to the disease including preventive measures, the development and relief works related the pandemic, opinions pieces over the various aspects of the disease and relief efforts, and touching stories of the medical workers who worked in the anti-virus frontlines. All these activities have the potential to provide social support for people to go through the crisis.
Therefore, the Coronavirus in China provides an ideal context to examine to what extent social support from various sources influences people’s cognition and affect related to the disease. Specifically, this study intends to examine how the gaps (see High & Steuber, 2014; Matsunaga, 2011; McLaren & High, 2015)between received and desired informational and emotional support from family members and close friends, social media “friends”, and professional media influence Chinese people’s problem-focused (cognitive) reappraisal and emotional reappraisal related to the Corona virus pandemic in China. Since support gap is a relatively new concept in the literature of social support, this study can contribute to our understanding of the relationship between the quantity of social support and its positive or negative outcome. Previous such studies often focus on people coping with stresses such as taboo marital stressors, but this study examines support gaps in a life-threatening setting, which can also offer valuable practical guidance for practitioners.
To answer the research questions above, the researchers collected a quota sample of 1072 respondents from five Chinese provinces including Hubei, Beijing, Guangdong, Henan and Liaoning (roughly 200 in each province), using online panel services. The major independent variables include desired and received informational and emotional supports. They are evaluated for three sources including family members and close friends (strong ties), social media “friends” (weak ties), and professional media. Support gaps are constructed by subtracting desired support from received support. The major dependent variables include problem-focus and emotional reappraisals. A polynomial regression will be conducted to examine the association between support gaps and reappraisal.