Youjin Jang

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill | UNC · Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center

In the United States, federal and local governments have attempted to contain the spread of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) by implementing a variety of policies such as stay-at-home orders and mask mandates. Perceptions can influence behaviors; therefore, it is important to understand how people perceive the stringency of COVID-19 policies, wh...

Purpose This study aims to use the anger activism model as an audience segmentation tool in the context of the anti-vaccination movement. Design/methodology/approach A cross-sectional survey was conducted with a national purposive sample ( N = 438). Findings The group with high anger, strong efficacy (i.e. “activists”) was found to be more likely...

The purpose of this study is to (a) outline the formative steps that universities can follow to determine if a media campaign based on the social norms approach (SNA) is a viable method for increasing COVID-19 prevention behaviors among their students, (b) present formative research data collected at a large public land-grant university in the U.S....

Social norms theories have guided social science research by predicting how and when social norms influence people’s behavior. However, there are still gaps in our understanding of how social norms are formed, maintained, and changed. It is possible that our own actions shape and perpetuate what we believe is normal. This study tests whether behavi...

Objective To explore the source, message, channel, and receiver effects on patient concern for antibiotic resistance, willingness to reduce antibiotic use, and expectations for an antibiotic prescription in a prepandemic sample. Methods We used data reported from a national cross-sectional survey of adults who had visited an urgent care center wit...

Primary emotions among populace about global health crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic are informative. Guided by appraisal theories of emotions, this study explored emotional segmentations by mapping the primary emotions about the COVID-19 and investigating the impact of the emotions on cognitive and behavioral outcomes including risk perception...

As individuals make belief decisions on truths and falsehoods, a systematic organization of (mis)information emerges. In this study, we employ a network approach to illustrate how a sample of Americans share a cognitive network of false and true statements related to COVID-19. Moreover, we examine what factors are associated with the formation of m...

To reduce the impact of communicable diseases like COVID-19, collective action is required and likely to be susceptible to normative influence as well as whether people are more or less collectively oriented. We extend the theory of normative social behavior (TNSB) to account for group orientation and predict the relationships between social norms...

Studies have shown that older adolescents have a low perceived personal risk of COVID-19, and yet their ability and willingness to engage in COVID-19 prevention behaviors is imperative for community health. Thus, health communication scholars need to consider alternative psycho-social predictors of prevention behaviors that will assist in protectin...

Objective: A systematic review of health interventions using avatars (N = 18) was conducted to provide comprehensive knowledge of the effectiveness of using avatars to promote healthy behaviors, specifically in relationship to healthy eating and exercising. Materials and Methods: Two researchers identified field or laboratory studies that had qua...

Even though the term chemyeon encompasses its own cultural uniqueness, there have only been a small number of attempts to develop a scale which embraces the characteristics of chemyeon. This scale has not been previously fully checked for validity and theoretical applicability. The purpose of this study is to test the validity of the existing scale...

The first purpose of this study was to confirm the results of a previous in-depth interview, which was conducted to measure risk perceptions toward particulate matter among lay people. Another purpose of this study was to finalize possible public clusters and their characteristics based on risk perceptions toward particulate matter, and investigate...

The study investigates the influence of sensation seeking, perceived smoking benefits/barriers, and social smoking conformity on the intention of smoking cigarettes in the context of Koreans' risk taking behaviors. Researchers expected that perceived smoking benefits/barriers mediate between sensation seeking and smoking intention, also between soc...

The study consists of two steps - content analysis and an experimental study - to examine the Koreans' level of acceptance toward crisis communications and the effects of Chemyon on the use and acceptance of crisis communications. According to the content analysis based on previous studies, the most frequent type of crisis Korean corporations used...