Figure 1
From: Anxiety increases information-seeking in response to large changes
Individuals reporting greater Covid-19-related anxiety sought more Covid-19-related information (Study 1). Plotted are the partial linear regressions predicting self-reported Covid-19-related information-seeking (obtained by asking participants “How often do you consume information on COVID-19 (news, internet etc..)?” on a scale from “Never” (0) to “At least once an hour” (6) on a discrete scale) from the Anxiety Index Score (obtained by summing the COVID-19-related anxiety questions and the SSAI score and dividing by the total number of questions) at Time Point 1 (A; p < 0.001) and Time Point 2 (B; p < 0.001), controlling for age, gender, level of education, household income, political orientation, ethnicity, whether they had dependents and the satisfaction with their health insurance. Both graphs show that individuals with higher Anxiety Index Score report engaging more in COVID-related information seeking. ***p < 0.001. (Note that the observed clustering along the Y-axis in both graphs is due to the discrete nature of the rating scale used to measure Covid-19-related information-seeking).
