Authoritarianism, Conspiracy Beliefs, Gender and COVID-19: Links Between Individual Differences and Concern About COVID-19, Mask Wearing Behaviors, and the Tendency to Blame China for the Virus

Abstract

The present study investigated variables potentially associated with a lack of concern about COVID-19 and belief in the conspiracy theory that China is responsible for the virus. In particular, the study looked at Authoritarianism, Conspiracy Beliefs, gender, and consistency of handedness as predictors of nine Likert-type items gauging attitudes, behavior, and beliefs regarding the virus. Initial analyses showed that Authoritarianism predicted less concern about the impact of the virus on health, less mask wearing, and a stronger belief in China’s responsibility for the illness. Conspiracy Beliefs were associated with a stronger belief in China’s responsibility. Women expressed greater degrees of concern about their own and others’ health and about the financial wellbeing of others. In order to reduce the number of dimensions, and thus the number of tests that could yield a type one error, the nine items were then submitted to a principal components analysis which yielded a “Concern about COVID” factor and a “Blame for China” factor. Authoritarianism is generally associated with less concern about the virus. In addition, men showed less concern about the virus overall than women. Both Authoritarianism and Conspiracy Beliefs accounted for unique variance in blame on China for the virus.

Differences in rapid increases in county-level COVID-19 incidence by implementation of statewide closures and mask mandates — United States, June 1–September 30, 2020

“…Differences in associations between community mitigation policies and rapid riser identification by urbanicity might also reflect variability in awareness of and adherence to mitigation policies. Previous studies have shown differences in mask-wearing behavior and other mitigation behaviors by gender, age, ethnicity, and urbanicity 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 . Further, inherent differences in structural and social factors of counties could have influenced both statewide mitigation policies and individual behavior, and thus, may also have contributed to differences in observed associations by urbanicity [ 14 , 25 ].…”

Noncompliance With Safety Guidelines as a Free-Riding Strategy: An Evolutionary Game-Theoretic Approach to Cooperation During the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…The growing problem of conspiracy theory-driven noncooperation is worth noting in the present context (Arnot et al, 2020;Prichard and Christman, 2020). As an epiphenomenon of adaptive rationalization mechanisms, conspiratorial thinking may be triggered as people struggle to gain a sense of control during crises such as COVID-19 (Yong et al, 2020).…”

Pandemic Leadership: Sex Differences and Their Evolutionary–Developmental Origins

“…The emotion of disgust has far-reaching implications for several areas of psychology, from cognition, judgment, decision-making, and social relationships to health and other behaviors ( Al-Shawaf et al, 2018 ), and so it may be reflected in the decisions that women make even at relatively high levels of abstraction when faced with a pathogenic threat. During the COVID-19 pandemic, women in the general public showed more concern about their own and others’ health ( Prichard and Christman, 2020 ), wearing masks 1.5× more frequently than men ( Haischer et al, 2020 ), even though COVID-19 disease severity and mortality are higher in men ( Krams et al, 2020 ). These sex differences extend even to dreams during the COVID-19 pandemic: a cross-national study on 1,998 women and 890 men reported that women showed significantly lower positive emotions in their dreams and higher rates of negative emotions, anxiety, sadness, anger, body content, and references to biological processes, health, and death than men ( Barrett, 2020 ).…”

“…Women also expressed more concern about the financial wellbeing of others than men did ( Prichard and Christman, 2020 ). Survey data from eight countries indicated that women were more likely than men to perceive COVID-19 as a very serious health problem, to agree with restraining public policy measures, and to comply with them ( Galasso et al, 2020 ).…”