Goal Disruption and Psychological Disequilibrium During the Outbreak of COVID-19: The Roles of Uncertainty, Information Seeking and Social Support

ABSTRACT

Using panel data from mainland China, this study incorporates uncertainty, information seeking, and social support into the goal disruption theoretical model to examine the indirect influence of goal disruption on psychological disequilibrium through uncertainty and the moderating roles of information seeking and social support in this relationship. The results demonstrate that goal disruption causes uncertainty and then leads to psychological disequilibrium. Information seeking can reduce uncertainty and social support can attenuate psychological disequilibrium as well. Limitations and further directions are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Goal disruption
• psychological disequilibrium
• uncertainty
• information seeking
• social support

Acknowledgement

We would like to express our great thanks to Prof. Chen, Hsuan-ting for her generous help on this manuscript and her inspiring course, Quantitative Communication Research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

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Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.