ABSTRACT
This study examines socio-cognitive motivators of information-sharing behaviors during the 2018 Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV) outbreak in South Korea. During the outbreak, an online survey was fielded to 988 South Korean adult members of an online research panel. The survey included questions about MERS-CoV-related risk perceptions, and attitudes and beliefs about risk information behaviors during the outbreak. The concepts and relationships sought through those questions were informed by the risk information seeking and processing model and related works. Data analysis suggests that sharing risk information about MERS-CoV was heavily shaped by risk information seeking (such that more seeking led to more sharing) and somewhat shaped by perceived pressure from others to share risk information. Interestingly, perceived level of knowledge and perceived level of risk were not significantly related to sharing. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.
