The Imprinting Effect of SARS Experience on the Fear of COVID-19: The Role of AI and Big Data

The worldwide outbreak of the COVID-19 has significantly increased the fear of individuals, which brings severe psychosocial stress and adverse psychological consequences, and become a serious public health problem. Based on the imprinting theory, this study investigates whether childhood experiences of SARS have an imprinting effect that significantly influences the fear of COVID-19. Furthermore, we propose that this effect is contingent on the applications of AI and big data. We test our framework with a sample of 1871 questionnaires that covered students in universities across all provincial regions in China, and the results suggest that the imprinting of SARS increases the individuals' fear of COVID-19, and this effect is reduced with the applications of AI and big data. Overall, this study provides a novel insight of the fear caused by the childhood experience of the similar health crisis and the unique role of AI and big data applications into fighting against COVID-19.