Impact of social fairness perception on sense of social security in China’s COVID-19 pandemic: the mediating role of political trust

作者：Jianwen Wang, Jingwen Zhang · 发表于：Frontiers in Psychology · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1525343 · 被引用次数：4 · 研究领域：Social Capital and Networks、China's Socioeconomic Reforms and Governance、COVID-19 Digital Contact Tracing

Introduction Against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic, emerging threats previously obscured were revealed and instilled a profound sense of insecurity across the globe. The exacerbation of unequal access to essential resources during the pandemic, particularly in rural-urban divides (e.g., healthcare infrastructure, economic relief distribution), has objectively contributed to a decline in individuals’ perceptions of social security, with rural residents facing compounded vulnerabilities. Thus, an exploration of the interplay between the variables of social fairness perception and sense of social security is warranted to provide empirical evidence and guidance for improved social governance and policy formulation in response to future social challenges. Methods This study, grounded in the data sourced from the 2021 China Social Survey (CSS 2021), utilizes the ordinal multivariate regression model within SPSS to conduct an in-depth exploration of the intrinsic relationship between social fairness and residents’ perceptions of social security. Results: Through the application of hierarchical multivariate stepwise regression analysis, the study reveals that both opportunity fairness (β = 0.41, p < 0.001) and outcome fairness (β = 0.43, p < 0.001) significantly predicted heightened perceptions of social security. These effects remained robust after controlling for demographic variables (e.g., age, residence) and contextual factors (e.g., living environment, soc...