How Online Social Support Enhances Individual Resilience in the Public Health Crisis: Testing a Dual-Process Serial Mediation Model

Chen S., Tian X.

Chen S.

Chen M., Li W.

AbstractSocial capital development has been extensively studied on relationship-based networks (i.e., Facebook, WeChat), whereas scant attention has been devoted to another critical category: interest-based networks. People join interest-based networks primarily to exchange information on shared topics and interests, as opposed to relationship development or maintenance. Guided by social capital theory, the current research takes an initial step by looking into whether and how bridging and bonding social capital accrues on interest-based networks. A cross-sectional survey was conducted among users of a well-known Chinese interest-based network, Douban.com (N = 624). The participants reported their bridging and bonding social capital, frequency of online interactions with content (i.e., posting, favoriting) and with humans (i.e., chatting, discussing), and sense of belonging. The mediation analysis results informed us of a theoretical model of social capital development on interest-based networks with both online interactions with content and with humans as the antecedents, and a sense of belonging as the consequence. The findings also revealed the steps of bridging and bonding social capital development on interest-based networks. This study advanced our understanding of social capital theory by examining its applicability in an interest-based SNS, identifying OIs with humans and content as potential antecedents, and elucidating the association between two types of social capital. The findings hold practical significance for designers of interest-based networks.

Yue Z., Zhang R., Xiao J.

Numerous studies have suggested that active social media use can promote well-being by enhancing perceived social support. However, the relationship between social media use and perceived social support remains inconsistent across studies. This study explores possible mechanisms underlying the relationship between active social media use, perceived social support, and well-being during and after a COVID-19 lockdown. Using online surveys with Chinese participants during ( N = 1,131) and after ( N = 407) the lockdown period, our findings support a sequential mediation model. Specifically, active social media use was positively associated with perceived online network responsiveness, which in turn, predicted augmented perceived social support. Ultimately, increased social support was linked to reduced loneliness and increased life satisfaction. These findings were consistent both during and after the lockdown, indicating that social media has the potential to complement offline social interactions and effectively fulfill individuals’ social needs.

Han Y., Yat-Nork Chung R.

Social capital could protect mental health. We examined whether the COVID-19 context and province-level COVID-19 situation altered the longitudinal association between cognitive social capital (generalized trust, trust in neighbors, trust in local government officials, and reciprocity) and depression. Results from multilevel mixed-effects linear regression models showed that trust in neighbors, trust in local government officials, and reciprocity were more crucial in longitudinally reducing depression in 2020 than in 2018. Also, as compared with provinces where the COVID-19 situation was less poor, trust in local government officials in 2018 was more crucial in reducing depression in 2020 in provinces with a worse COVID-19 situation. Therefore, cognitive social capital should be taken into account for pandemic preparedness and mental health resilience.

Tan C., Luo X., Zhou Z., Zeng X., Wan X., Yi L., Liu Q.

The sustainability and generalizability of China's dynamic zero-COVID strategy on eliminating SARS-CoV-2 transmission has casted doubt globally, mainly because it has exacted high social and economic cost. This study aimed to estimate the disease burden during the first wave of Omicron in China and compared the cost-effectiveness of implementing a Real-world strategy (adjusted dynamic zero-COVID strategy) with two simulated strategies (routine and stricter dynamic zero-COVID strategy) to inform appropriate strategies for COVID-19 pandemic control.A dynamic state-transition simulation model was developed to compare the health and cost outcomes between different dynamic zero-COVID strategies. Omicron-related healthcare costs were estimated from the societal perspective. Epidemiological parameter values were derived from data of real-world or generated by model calibration; costs and effectiveness parameter values were informed either by local data or published literature. The primary outcomes were total social cost, disability adjusted life-years (DALYs) and net monetary benefit (NMB). Deterministic sensitivity analyses (DSA) and scenario analyses were performed to assess the model robustness.The first wave of Omicron in Shanghai resulted in 47,646 DALYs lost and 415 billion RMB losses. At a willingness-to-pay threshold of 173,630 RMB (the GDP per capita of Shanghai in 2021) per DALY saved, the Real-world strategy was considered as the most cost-effective strategy due to its highest NMB (-407 billion). Results from DSA confirmed the robustness of our findings.Our finding supported the Real-world strategy taken by the Shanghai Municipal Government between March 1 and May 21, 2022 to control the first wave of Omicron outbreak. Moreover, our results indicated that whether the Stricter dynamic zero-COVID strategy is worth implementing at the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak mainly depended on the infection rate of COVID-19 among primary contacts. Our analysis provides important evidence to inform policy makers to make appropriate decisions regarding COVID-19 pandemic management.

Höltmann G., Hutter S., Specht J.

Troy A.S., Willroth E.C., Shallcross A.J., Giuliani N.R., Gross J.J., Mauss I.B.

Exposure to adversity (e.g., poverty, bereavement) is a robust predictor of disruptions in psychological functioning. However, people vary greatly in their responses to adversity; some experience severe long-term disruptions, others experience minimal disruptions or even improvements . We refer to the latter outcomes—faring better than expected given adversity—as psychological resilience. Understanding what processes explain resilience has critical theoretical and practical implications. Yet, psychology's understanding of resilience is incomplete, for two reasons: ( a) We lack conceptual clarity, and ( b) two major approaches to resilience—the stress and coping approach and the emotion and emotion-regulation approach—have limitations and are relatively isolated from one another. To address these two obstacles, we first discuss conceptual questions about resilience. Next, we offer an integrative affect-regulation framework that capitalizes on complementary strengths of both approaches. This framework advances our understanding of resilience by integrating existing findings, highlighting gaps in knowledge, and guiding future research. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Psychology, Volume 74 is January 2023. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

Hoffman A., Mehrpour A., Staerklé C.

AbstractDifferent theoretical frameworks have been developed to account for the impact of social connectedness on individual outcomes such as vulnerability and subjective well-being, in particular approaches based on social identity theory, on social networks, and on social capital. We review research that describes how such social connectedness approaches rooted in psychological, social-psychological and sociological traditions demonstrate the link between social relations, vulnerability and well-being.We summarize and compare key arguments of these approaches in terms of their views on the processes relating the collective-relational to the individual-psychological. Indeed, social connectedness is generally associated with positive individual outcomes (such as prevention of physical and mental health issues and improved subjective well-being).Under some circumstances, however, these positive effects weaken or disappear. We therefore discuss boundary conditions of these processes, by looking at research explaining variation of the relation between connectedness and well-being as a function of social conditions (e.g., structural inequality, weak social relations, or negative social identities).Last, we discuss specificities and commonalities between approaches, for example regarding bridging and bonding social capital, or intergroup and intragroup relations. We highlight the tensions between approaches and offer some guidelines regarding their most promising use as a function of one’s research goals.

Jiang Q., Zhang Y., Pian W.

• Empathy work as a key mechanism of information processing in human-AI interaction. • Five types of Replika experiences among Chinese female users are found. • Varying degrees of cognitive empathy, affective empathy and empathic response are involved in human-AI interaction. • Mediated empathy facilitates resilience processes and enhance well-being. • Implications for global recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic are discussed. As a global health crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic has also made heavy mental and emotional tolls become shared experiences of global communities, especially among females who were affected more by the pandemic than males for anxiety and depression. By connecting multiple facets of empathy as key mechanisms of information processing with the communication theory of resilience, the present study examines human-AI interactions during the COVID-19 pandemic in order to understand digitally mediated empathy and how the intertwining of empathic and communicative processes of resilience works as coping strategies for COVID-19 disruption. Mixed methods were adopted to explore the using experiences and effects of Replika, a chatbot companion powered by AI, with ethnographic research, in-depth interviews, and grounded theory-based analysis. Findings of this research extend empathy theories from interpersonal communication to human-AI interactions and show five types of digitally mediated empathy among Chinese female Replika users with varying degrees of cognitive empathy, affective empathy, and empathic response involved in the information processing processes, i.e., companion buddy, responsive diary, emotion-handling program, electronic pet, and tool for venting. When processing information obtained from AI and collaborative interactions with the AI chatbot, multiple facets of mediated empathy become unexpected pathways to resilience and enhance users’ well-being. This study fills the research gap by exploring empathy and resilience processes in human-AI interactions. Practical implications, especially for increasing individuals’ psychological resilience as an important component of global recovery from the pandemic, suggestions for future chatbot design, and future research directions are also discussed.

Li W., Chen M.

Online communities have become an essential component in the current society, and the sense of virtual community (SOVC) plays a determinant role in affecting the community's sustainability. Thus, understanding the predictors of SOVC is a topic of interest for both researchers and practitioners. To do so, we take a relational approach and propose a dual-process model in which one-to-one online social interactions facilitate the development of SOVC through the accumulation of two types of social capital. Drawing on a survey of 624 members of an interest-based SNS in China, the findings indicated that both public and private online social interactions influence SOVC, but through different pathways. Specifically, the impact of public interactions on SOVC is mediated by both bridging and bonding social capital, and the mediation effect of bridging is stronger than that of bonding. Meanwhile, the association between private interactions and SOVC is completely mediated by bonding social capital. This study contributes to the SOVC scholarship by identifying the importance of one-to-one online social interactions in the development of SOVC and explicating the underlying mechanism. Implications of the findings and directions for future research are discussed. • This is an early study of whether one-to-one interactions on SNSs can foster SOVC. • Both public and private interactions on SNSs drive SOVC. • Public interactions impact SOVC via both bridging and bonding social capital. • Bridging has a stronger mediation effect compared to bonding. • Bonding fully mediates the association between private interactions and SOVC.

Xie L., Pinto J., Zhong B.

Facing the Covid outbreaks, public health researchers share a consensus that community resilience should be maintained and strengthened because it helps mitigate the physical and emotional tolls on individuals and communities. One way to achieve the goal is to build and strengthen community resilience through social media. However, social media's role in building community resilience has been poorly understood from a behavioral perspective. Guiding by uses and gratification theory and the coping literature, we build a model to examine how social media behaviors may influence community members' perceived community resilience, providing a “bottom-up” voice to deepen our understanding of community resilience and its implications for public health. The results shows that community members' social media engagement was significantly associated with their perceived community resilience. While helping others on social media led people to perceive their communities as less resilient, the use of social media for social support helped foster social capital, leading to more perceived resilience at the collective level. Overall, social media use played important roles in shaping people's perception of community resilience, helping community members and organizations evaluate their strengths and weaknesses, and make improvement to better address future challenges in the times of global disasters. • Social media use is associated with perceived community resilience. • Gaining social support via social media bolstered perception of community resilience. • Offering help via social media is associated with lower community resilience perception. • Community resilience offers promise in combating public health challenges.

Lee D.W.

Häusser J., Abdel Hadi S., Reichelt C., Mojzisch A.

It has been argued that the positive effect of a shared social identity on health and well-being critically hinges on the interplay between social identity and social support. This interplay, however, is poorly understood. Building on Haslam et al., we argue that their relationship can be conceptualized as being reciprocal and dynamic with each variable influencing the other. The present study is the first to examine how the reciprocal relationship between social identification and perceived social support unfolds over time. In a sample of university freshmen (NT1 = 172), we examined this reciprocal relationship in a four-wave survey study spanning over a period of 13 months. In line with Haslam et al., the results revealed a self-reinforcing cycle with social identification at T1 being positively related to perceived social support at T2, which, in turn, was positively related to social identification at T3, which predicted perceived social support at T4. In conclusion, our study advances knowledge regarding the interplay between social identity and social support over time and, hence, contributes to our understanding of the mechanisms underlying the social cure effect.

Choi K.W., Jung J.H., Kim H.H.

Objectives: We investigate whether older adults who place greater trust in their political leadership fare better in terms of mental wellbeing during the COVID-19 pandemic. We also test if and how the trust-wellbeing relationship varies across individual- and country-level moderators. Methods: Based on cross-national data consisting of over 13,000 older adults in 66 countries, we estimate a series of multilevel models. Results: Within countries, political trust is significantly negatively associated with depressive symptoms. And this association is stronger for those who are subjectively less healthy. Between countries, the trust-depression link at the individual level is stronger in more “fragile” states. These findings are robust to a host of confounders including the experienced level of anxiety stemming from COVID-19. Discussion: During the novel coronavirus pandemic, political trust provides a significant mental health buffer for older adults. This protective role varies partly as a function of individual and contextual vulnerability.

Zhang F., Pan Z., Luo B., Hu Q.

Chung D., Meng Y., Wang J.

Background: The intersection of occupational burnout and digital leisure activities has garnered increasing scholarly attention in recent years. However, limited research has examined how Chinese healthcare workers engage with short-form video apps as a stress management tool. Objectives: This study employs a serial multiple mediation model to explore the impact of occupational burnout on the use of short-form video apps and its subsequent effects on a sense of community, intrinsic rewards, and life satisfaction among Chinese healthcare workers aged 18–34. Methods: Data were collected through an online survey, with 362 valid responses, and analyzed using descriptive statistics, hierarchical regression, and mediation analyses, including serial mediation via SPSS 25.0. Results: The results demonstrate a positive direct association between occupational burnout and the use of short-form video apps. Furthermore, the relationship between the use of short-form video apps and life satisfaction was mediated through two distinct pathways, namely, a sense of community and intrinsic rewards. Conclusions: These findings contribute to the expanding body of literature on the role of digital media in stress management and well-being among healthcare workers, as well as highlighting evidence-based digital interventions to support healthcare workers’ well-being in high-stress settings.