Lockdown measures have been widely used to control and prevent virus transmission in pandemic regions. However, the psychological effects of lockdown measures have been neglected, and the related theoretical research lags behind the practice. The present study aimed to better understand the mechanism of social anxiety in pandemic regions where the lockdown measures were imposed, based on the conceptual framework of the Stimulus-Organism-Response (SOR). For that, this research investigated how lockdown measures and psychological distance influenced social anxiety in the pandemic region. The Chinese national data was analyzed for the outcome. The results showed that (1) psychological distance mediated the relationship between pandemic COVID-19 severity and social anxiety, (2) lockdown measures buffered the detrimental effect of the COVID-19 pandemic severity on social anxiety, (3) lockdown measures moderated the mediation effect of psychological distancing on social anxiety caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. In conclusion, under the SOR framework, the lockdown measures had a buffer effect on social anxiety in pandemic regions, with the mediating role of psychological distancing.

Infected people are isolated to minimize the spread of pandemic diseases. Therefore, the factors related to self-isolation (SI) should not be neglected, and it is important to investigate the factors leading the infected (or possibly infected) people to choose to self-isolate. In this paper, we tried to show that the theory of planned behavior provides a useful conceptual framework for SI when facing a pandemic risk, and a regression method with Chinese provincial (Guangdong Province) data was applied to investigate how attitude (ATT), subjective norms (SN), and perceived behavioral control (PBC) influence SI when facing a pandemic emergency. The results and the robustness tests confirm that ATT, SN, and PBC have a significant positive influence on SI when facing a pandemic emergency. ATT plays the most important role, followed by SN and then PBC. Based on the factors of SI, we found, through theoretical and empirical analyses, at least three important aspects that local governments need to consider to encourage citizens to self-isolate when facing a pandemic.

(1) Background: Public servants are regarded as guardians of the public interest, and their pandemic response played a vital role in controlling the spread of the epidemic. However, there is limited knowledge of the factors that influence public servants’ response (PSR) when facing pandemic prevention and control tasks. (2) Methods: Based on the theory of planned behavior (TPB), models were constructed and a regression method was employed with Chinese civil servant data to investigate how PSR is influenced by public service motivation (PSM), accountability pressure (AP), and emergency response capacity (ERC). (3) Results and discussion: PSM, AP, and ERC all have a positive effect on PSR, with AP having the greatest influence, followed by PSM and ERC. The effects of PSM, AP, and ERC on PSR have group heterogeneity, which had little effect on civil servants with very low levels of PSR and the greatest impact on civil servants with medium-level PSR. Job categories of civil servants also are a factor related to PSR; PSM and AP have the strongest effects on civil servants in professional technology, and ERC has the greatest influence on administrative law enforcement. Moreover, gender, administrative level, and leadership positions also have an impact on PSR. (4) Conclusions: Based on the factors of PSR, we found at least three important aspects that governments need to consider in encouraging PSR when facing a pandemic.