Dynamics of collectivistic language and emotional expression in China's early pandemic: A social media analysis

Crises can produce contradictory responses in collectivistic cultures, yielding both solidarity and fragmentation. We propose these paradoxes can be understood by noting multiple ecological levels in collectivistic cultures that reconfigure differentially under stress. Analysing 32,042 Sina Weibo posts from China's early COVID-19 outbreak, we examined collectivistic language and emotional expression across three geographical zones and temporal periods. Results revealed ‘proximal concentration’ at the epicentre of the outbreak, characterized by heightened family/community expressions and reduced abstract rhetoric. In contrast, ‘distal amplification’ was found in peripheral regions. Furthermore, we found a psychological typhoon eye effect in people's cultural expressions such that responses in the epicentre showed increasing positive emotion despite the greatest threat. Critically, ecological levels displayed opposing emotional associations such that microsystem pronouns and macrosystem values were positively associated with positive emotions, while exosystem national identity and mesosystem family/community were negatively associated. These findings suggest collectivism reconfigures through level-specific activation with divergent emotional consequences, highlighting potential limitations of unidimensional cultural frameworks, as aggregated collectivism can mask observing these heterogeneous responses.