The impact of information overload on the four psychological capital aspects of university students in Shanghai during health emergencies.

Regarding pandemic-related information overload and emerging adults' psychological responses amid the city-wide COVID-19 pandemic in Shanghai, this research aims to investigate the underlying mechanism of how online information shapes risk perception and casts influence on individuals' psychological capital. Applying structural equation modeling to a cross-sectional study (N = 412), the researcher concludes a psychological mechanism that depicts the route through which information overload affects psychological well-being during the pandemic era. With perceived risk being examined separately on a personal and societal level, the study shows that personal risk perception indicates promising psychological capital while societal risk perception indicates the opposite. It is alerting that the increase in societal risk perception and awareness of collective suffering could potentially lead to hopelessness, pessimism, and low self-efficacy. Additionally, the study also sheds light on the promising function of emotion-coping behaviors, which serves as a psychological buffer between perceived risk and psychological capital, navigating individuals through sociopsychological uncertainties and hazardousness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]