In this study, health risk attitude and health locus of control were included as dispositional factors in the Protection Motivation Theory (PMT) to explain people's protective behavior in the context of COVID-19 pandemic. Empirical data involved two waves of data with a sample of 526 adults with full-time jobs from Beijing, China, and structural equation model results confirmed a partial successful extension of the PMT. Specifically, health risk attitude had a direct effect on citizens' protective behavior, but without an indirect effect mediated by threat appraisal toward the COVID-19 pandemic; health locus of control did not directly associate with citizens' protective behavior, but had an indirect effect on it fully via coping appraisal toward the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, the PMT has been extended by adding a distal dispositional factor on the impact of coping appraisal on protective behavior. Implications for advancing the government's anti-epidemic strategy are discussed.
This research investigated the relationships between school climates and bullying behaviors in Chinese adolescents, and tested the mediating effect of prosocial tendency according to the seesaw effect. School climates were operationalized using three constructs: subjective diversity of student development goals, teacher support, and peer trust. Bullying behaviors included traditional (i.e., physical, nonphysical, and relational) and cyber bullying behaviors. We recruited 538 adolescents from three schools in Beijing, China (286 girls, 252 boys; average age = 12.47) and asked them to fill out the surveys measuring school climates and prosocial tendency at the outset and to report school bullying behaviors three months later. The results showed that subjective diversity of student development goals and peer trust were directly associated with less cyber bullying behavior. Moreover, teacher support and peer trust were indirectly associated with less traditional bullying behaviors via prosocial tendency. Our findings extend the existing literature on the relationships between school climates and bullying behaviors by incorporating different types of bullying behaviors, concentrating on Chinese adolescents from a cultural viewpoint, and tapping into the underlying mechanism via revealing prosocial tendency as a mediator. Theoretical and empirical contributions of this study, as well as practical implications are discussed.
In 2015, an unexpected multiple outbreak of dengue occurred in Guangdong, China. In total, 1,699 cases were reported, of which 1,627 cases were verified to have DENV infections by nucleic acid or NS1 protein, including 44 DENV-1, 1126 DENV-2, 18 DENV-3 and 6 DENV-4, and the other cases were confirmed by NS1 ELISA. Phylogenetic analyses of DENV-1 isolates identified two genotypes (I and V). The predominant DENV-2 outbreak isolates were the Cosmopolitan genotypes, which likely originated from Malaysia. The DENV-3 isolates were assigned into genotype I and genotype III. All 6 DENV-4 isolates from imported cases were likely originally from Cambodia, Thailand and the Philippines. The entomological surveillance showed a moderate risk for the BI index in Chaozhou and Foshan and a low risk in Guangzhou. The imported cases were mostly detected in Guangzhou and Foshan. Surprisingly, the most serious outbreak occurred in Chaozhou, but not in Guangzhou or Foshan. A combined analyses demonstrated the multiple geographical origins of this outbreak, and highlight the detection of suspected cases after the alerting of imported cases, early implementation of control policies and reinforce the vector surveillance strategies were the key points in the chain of prevention and control of dengue epidemics.