Psychological Development and Education ›› 2026, Vol. 42 ›› Issue (2): 202-211.doi: 10.16187/j.cnki.issn1001-4918.2026.02.06

Previous Articles     Next Articles

The Influence of Emotional Arousal on the Intention of Older Adults to Forward Health Rumors

LI Jinfeng1,2, ZHAN Jiechen1, WANG Dahua1,2   

  1. 1. Institute of Developmental Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875;
    2. Key Research Base of Humanities and Social Sciences of the Ministry of Education, Academy of Psychology and Behavior, Tianjin Normal University, Tianjin 300387
  • Published:2026-03-14

RichHTML

PDF (PC)

Abstract: This study focused on older adults, who are considered “digital immigrants”, to examine the influence of emotional arousal on the intention to forward health rumors and further the moderating effect of eHealth literacy on the relationship. The research consisted of a pilot study and a formal study. The pilot study recruited 24 older adults (12 males; mean age: 65.50±4.63 years old) and aimed to design and produce experimental materials (e.g., health rumors) for the formal study. The formal study recruited 69 older adults (22 males; mean age: 65.26±3.81 years old) for a two-stage experiment involving factor design (eHealth literacy: low vs. high; emotional arousal: low vs. high vs. control) and intervention experiments (losing one older adult, i.e., 68 participants; intervention technique: self-alerting to emotional arousal). The results showed that: (1) Emotional arousal increased the intention of older adults to forward health rumors; (2) By self-alerting to emotional arousal, the intention of older adults to forward health rumors could be effectively reduced; (3) There was no moderating effect of eHealth literacy on the relationship between emotional arousal and intention to forward health rumors, indicating that the effect of emotional arousal was consistent across high and low eHealth literacy groups of older adults. In conclusion, emotional arousal had positive influence on intention to forward health rumors, regardless of older adults’ levels of eHealth literacy.

Key words: older adults, intention to forward health rumors, eHealth literacy, emotional arousal, self-alerting

CLC Number: 

  • B844
Ali, K., Li, C., Zain-ul-abdin, K., & Muqtadir, S. A. (2022). The effects of emotions, individual attitudes towards vaccination, and social endorsements on perceived fake news credibility and sharing motivations. Computers in Human Behavior, 134, 107307. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2022.107307
An, L., Bacon, E., Hawley, S., Yang, P., Russel, D., Huffman, S., … Resnicow, K. (2021). Relationship between coronavirus-related eHealth literacy and COVID-19 knowledge, attitudes, and practices among US adults: Web-based survey study. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 23(3), e25042.https://doi.org/10.2196/25042
Carstensen, L. L., Fung, H. H., & Charles, S. T. (2003). Socioemotional selectivity theory and the regulation of emotion in the second half of life. Motivation and Emotion, 27, 103-119.
Chaiken, S. (1980). Heuristic versus systematic information processing and the use of source versus message cues in persuasion.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 39(5), 752-766.
Chaiken, S., & Maheswaran, D. (1994). Heuristic processing can bias systematic processing: Effects of source credibility, argument ambiguity, and task importance on attitude judgment.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66(3), 460-473.
Charles,S. T., & Carstensen, L. L. (2007). Emotion regulation and aging. In J. J. Gross (Ed.), Handbook of Emotion Regulation (pp. 307-327). Guilford Press.
Chou, W. Y. S., Oh, A., & Klein, W. M. P. (2018). Addressing health-related misinformation on social media. JAMA-Journal of American Medical Association, 320(23), 2417-2418. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2018.16865
Chua, A., & Banerjee, S. (2017). To share or not to share: The role of epistemic belief in online health rumors. International Journal of Medical Informatics, 108, 36-41.
Chua A., & Banerjee, S. (2018). Intentions to trust and share online health rumors: An experiment with medicalprofessionals. Computers in Human Behavior, 87, 1-9.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2018.05.021
Chua, A., Banerjee, S., Guan, A. H., Xian, L. J., & Peng, P. (2016). Intention to trust and share health-related online rumors: Studying the role of risk propensity.In 2016 SAI Computing Conference (SAI). IEEE.
Cotton, J. L. (1981). A review of research on Schachter’s theory of emotion and the misattribution of Arousal. European Journal of Social Psychology, 11, 365-397.
da Silva Frost, A., & Ledgerwo od, A. (2020). Calibrate your confidence in research findings: A tutorial on improving research methods and practices. Journal of Pacific Rim Psychology, 14, e14. https://doi.org/10.1017/prp.2020.7
Faul, F.,Erdfelder, E., Lang, A. G., & Buchner, A. (2007). G*Power 3: A flexible statistical power analysis program for the social, behavioral, and biomedical sciences. Behavior Research Methods, 39, 175-191.
FeldmanHall, O., Glimcher, P., Phelps, E. A., & Baker, A. (2016). Emotion and decision-making under uncertainty: Physiological arousal predicts increased gambling during ambiguity but not risk. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 145(10), 1255-1262.
Finucane, M. L.,Alhakami, A., Slovic, P., & Johnson, S. M. (2000). The affect heuristic in judgments of risks and benefits. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 13(1), 1-17.https://doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1099-0771(200001/03)13:1<1::AID-BDM333>3.0.CO;2-S
Gibbons, J. A., Lukowski, A. F.,& Walker, W. R. (2005). Exposure increases the believability of unbelievable news headlines via elaborate cognitive processing. Media Psychology, 7, 273-300.
Hung, W., Ross, J., Boockvar, K., & Siu, A. (2011). Recent trends in chronic disease, impairment and disability among older adults in the United States. BMC Geriatrics, 11, Article 47.https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2318-11-47
Institute of Medicine (US) Committee on Health Literacy. (2004). Health literacy: A prescription to end confusion. Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US).
Kim, K., Shin, S., Kim, S., & Lee, E. (2023). The relation between eHealth literacy and health-related behaviors: Systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 25, e40778. https://doi.org/10.2196/40778
Lee, C. S., & Ma, L. (2012). News sharing in social media: The effect of gratifications and prior experience. Computers in Human Behavior, 28, 331-339.
Mather, M., & Carstensen, L. L. (2005). Aging and motivated cognition: The positivity effect in attention and memory. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 9(10), 496-502.
Mather, M., & Sutherland, M. R. (2011). Arousal-biased competition in perception and memory.Perspectives on Psychological Science, 6, 114-133.
Na, K., Garrett, R., & Slater, M. (2018). Rumor acceptance during public health crises: Testing the emotional congruence hypothesis. Journal of Health Communication, 23(8), 791-799.
Norman, C. D., & Skinner, H. A. (2006). eHealth literacy: Essential skills for consumer health in a networked world. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 8(2), e9. https://doi.org/10.2196/jmir.8.2.e9
Peterson, W. A., & Gist, N. P. (1951). Rumor and public opinion. American Journal of Sociology, 57(2), 159-167.
Preckel, K., Kanske, P., & Singer, T. (2018). On the interaction of social affect and cognition:Empathy, compassion and theory of mind. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 19, 1-6. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cobeha.2017.07.010
Rosnow, R. L. (1988). Rumor as communication: A contextualist approach. Journal of Communication, 38(1), 12-28.
Russell, J. A. (2009). Core affect and the psychological construction of emotion. Cognition & Emotion, 23(7), 1259-1283.
Sykes, S.,Wills, J. Trasolini, A., Wood, K., & Frings, D. (2022). eHealth literacy during the COVID-19 pandemic: Seeking, sharing, suspicion amongst older and younger UK populations. Health Promotion International, 37(1), daab103. https://doi.org/10.1093/heapro/daab103
Wang, Y., McKee, M., Torbica, A.,& Stuckler, D. (2019). Systematic literature review on the spread of health-related misinformation on social media. Social Science & Medicine, 240, 112552. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2019.112552
Zhao, Y., Zhao, M., & Song, S. (2022). Online health information seeking behaviors among older adults: Systematic scoping review. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 24(2), e34790. https://doi.org/10.2196/34790
Zhou, J., Xiang, H., & Xie, B. (2023). Better safe than sorry: A study on older adults’ credibility judgments and spreading of health misinformation. Universal Access in the Information Society, 22, 957-966.
金诗晓, 李小寒. (2024). 老年人电子健康素养研究进展. 护理研究, 38(04), 620-623.
李嘉豪. (2019). 中老年群体的微信谣言传播与影响因素研究(硕士学位论文). 深圳大学.
宋小康, 赵宇翔, 宋士杰, 朱庆华. (2020). 基于MOA理论的健康谣言分享意愿影响因素研究. 情报学报, 39(05), 511-520.
吴颖敏, 张媚, 朱良艳. (2017). 消费者电子健康素养评估及在移动医疗中的应用. 消费经济, 33(1), 90-96.
中国互联网络信息中心. (2023). 第52次中国互联网络发展状况统计报告. 2024-03-02取自https://www.cnnic.net.cn/n4/2023/0828/c88-10829.html
[1] CAO Xiancai, ZHANG Hao, ZHOU Bolin, CHEN Xiantao, CUI Chenghong, WU Jie. A Meta-analysis of the Impact Factors of Technology Acceptance among Older Adults Based on Technology Acceptance Model [J]. Psychological Development and Education, 2025, 41(6): 799-816.
[2] YU Linwei, LI Shuang, LIU Shen, PAN Wenpei, XU Qiang, ZHANG Lin. The Positivity Effect of Ambiguous Facial Expressions Recognition and Its Mechanism in Older Adults [J]. Psychological Development and Education, 2024, 40(2): 196-206.
[3] ZHANG Hongchi, MAO Weibin, CUI Huiyuan, AN Shu, LI Qingyuan. The Effects of Value on Item Memory and Associative Memory in Older Adults [J]. Psychological Development and Education, 2023, 39(5): 625-634.
[4] LIN Yao, ZHANG Baoshan, XU Ran, ZHANG Heyating. The Relationship between Sleep Quality and Family Communication and Its Mechanism among the Older Adults [J]. Psychological Development and Education, 2023, 39(2): 200-209.
[5] ZHANG Jun, TONG Wen, LIU Zhifang. The Aging of Perceptual Span in Different Word Length Sentences: Evidences from Eye Movement [J]. Psychological Development and Education, 2019, 35(3): 312-319.
[6] ZHANG Jinfeng, WANG Yan. The Effects of Tenacious Goal Pursuit and Flexible Goal Adjustment on Well-being among Elderly Couples: Based on the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model [J]. Psychological Development and Education, 2018, 34(6): 750-757.
[7] BAI Xuejun, GUO Zhiying, WANG Yongsheng, GAO Xiaolei, YAN Guoli. The Landing Positions of Older and Younger Adults while Reading Spaced Text [J]. Psychological Development and Education, 2015, 31(2): 171-179.
[8] LIU Xi-ping, TANG Le, TANG Wei-hai. The Own-Age Effect in Face Recognition and Judgments of Learning [J]. Psychological Development and Education, 2012, 28(3): 271-275.
[9] ZHAI Xiao-yan, LI Chun-hua, Wei Hong, WANG Da-hua. The Development of the Questionnaire of Marital Attachment for Older Adults [J]. Psychological Development and Education, 2010, 26(2): 197-204.
Viewed
Full text


Abstract

Cited
  Shared   
  Discussed   
No Suggested Reading articles found!
Copyright 2018 © Editorial office of Psychological Development and Education
Supported by Beijing Magtech Co.Ltd