Covid-19 increased collectivistic expression on Sina Weibo

Abstract

parasite disease theory of collectivism contends that inhabitants in regions with high prevalence of infectious diseases would adopt collectivism than those in regions with low prevalence in the long-term. It is not clear whether or not outbreak of infectious disease one time would elevate collectivism. Here using millions of Sin a Weibo active users' posts from January 20th, 2020 to February 16th, 2020, we constructed indicators of individualism and collectivism independently and found that the outbreak of COVID-19 increase collectivism and decrease individualism. Its theoretical contributions and implications to cultural psychology and big data are also discussed.