Yevhen Potapchuk
Doctor of Psychological Sciences, Professor. Khmelnytskyi National University
ORCID 0000-0001-7040-8456
Nataliia Potapchuk
Doctor of Psychological Sciences, Senior Researcher. National Academy of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine named after Bohdan Khmelnytskyi
ORCID 0000-0001-8303-6196
DOI - https://doi.org/10.52363/dcpp-2021.1.3
Keywords: reasons; factors, hearings/rumors, population, pandemic; coronavirus.
The article raises the question of the causes and factors of rumors among the population in the context of the coronavirus pandemic. It was studied the content of "hearings" notion being a specific form of inreliable information or partially reliable information about COVID-19, which can cause or intensify panic among the population and complicate the process of combating a pandemic, has been investigated. In the article a psychological analysis of scientific research on hearings classification is carried out. It was revealed that according to the expressive criterion, there are three types of hearings: hearing-desire, hearing-scarecrow, aggressive hearing. According to the information criterion, hearings have four kinds: absolutely false hearings; uncredible with elements of plausibility; plausible hearings; credible hearings with elements of plausibility. The nature of the inaccurate information about the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic has been identified. There were established the reasons for the spread of hearings about the coronavirus among the population, as well as the factors of their occurrence (concealment or falsification of information about the coronavirus COVID-19 and falsification of data during a pandemic; spread of fake-information directly or indirectly related to the pandemic, by websites; alarming mass-media reports; behavior of family doctors and imitation of COVID-19 treatment). With the help of the authors' questionnaire "Determinants of hearings in the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic conditions", socio-psychological circumstances have been established that contribute to the emergence of rumors caused by the spread of the coronavirus epidemic. The influence of the media on the occurrence of rumors in the context of the coronavirus pandemic has been investigated. It has been found that domestic media resources, with some exceptions, actively disseminate information about COVID-19, which in most cases helps to prevent rumors/hearings of the coronavirus pandemic.