Who is afraid of the Ebola outbreak? The influence of discrete emotions on risk perception

Abstract

The appraisal tendency framework (ATF) suggests that discrete emotions mediate the relationship between cognitive appraisals and behaviors. Based on the ATF, this study analyzed and found that fear, anger, anxiety, disgust, and sadness were positively related to the US public’s risk perception about the Ebola outbreak. Fear was also found to inhibit the degree to which systematic processing of the relevant risk information influenced participants’ support for institutional mitigation measures such as sending more health professionals to help countries in West Africa deal with the Ebola outbreak. The result partially confirms the ATF and offers important practical implications in regard to the communication of emergent public health crises.