Abstract
BACKGROUND: The frequent occurrence of social infectious diseases not only threatens the lives and health of the public but also brings about a more serious psychological crisis for the public. Understanding the public's psychological reactions during public health emergencies is crucial to developing an effective crisis management strategy. METHODS: This study focuses on the monkeypox epidemic and uses Python to crawl the topic data on monkeypox on Weibo. It uses social cognitive theory and sentiment analysis methods to analyze the public's sentiment values and psychological crisis reactions at different stages. It also comprehensively examines the relationship between different emotions during the epidemic. RESULTS: The study found that the external environment is the basis for the public psychological crisis. Different subjects have different cognitions, determining the intensity of emotional reactions. In particular, the lack of social identity has aggravated the public's negative emotions towards infected people. Of course, different emotional responses are interrelated and have different intensities at various stages. CONCLUSION: Social norms and effective crisis management strategies are crucial to shaping the public's emotional response and alleviating psychological crises. Moreover, promoting the disclosure of real information and controlling the spread of rumors can effectively lessen the panic caused by the epidemic. By exploring the public's accurate psychological crisis response, this article provides suggestions and references for the government to actively intervene in the public psychological crisis during the epidemic.