Effects of Living Conditions, Political Orientation, and Empathy on Behaviors and Attitudes During the COVID-19 Pandemic: a Study in the Brazilian Context

Abstract

For a year now, the world has been facing the pandemic of COVID-19, which has affected many sectors of society in an unprecedented proportion. The main objective of this paper was to investigate whether there are relationships between empathy, prosocial behavior, and adherence to measures to fight COVID-19 in a sample of Brazilian participants. Results point to the influence of education, living conditions, political orientation, and empathy on the adoption of measures to contain the virus, and on personal impressions regarding the disease. Specifically, participants with more years of education, with better conditions of practice social distancing, and those who identified themselves as leftist or center-leftist were more favourable to adopting virus containment measures and to practicing physical distancing. Higher levels of empathy were also associated to more positive attitudes concerning those measures. It is argued that political polarization and divergences between discourses by scientists, health authorities, politicians, and the Brazilian rulers may be reinforcing the perception of division in society. This, in turn, inhibits the building of a collectivistic view concerning COVID-19, which would be crucial to cope with the pandemic.

What draws voters to brandidates and why? – Political orientation, personal satisfaction, and societal values on presidential candidates’ brand personality

“…Political orientation has historically been assessed by understanding party affiliation, voting history, political-economic liberalism-conservatism and reasons for preference for a particular group (Spaulding and Turner, 1968). An individual’s political orientation can influence outcomes such as moral reasoning, evaluation of risk perceptions of infectious diseases, attitudes toward immigrants and orientation toward a conspiracy mentality (Emler et al , 1983; Imhoff et al , 2022; Ju and You, 2022; Kivikangas et al , 2021; Sampaio et al , 2022; Verkuyten et al , 2022). Personality traits and individual values can affect political orientation (Schwartz, 2011; St.…”

“…In South Korea, conservatives showed a higher risk perception of COVID-19, and those with a liberal orientation had higher outrage effects of perceived unfairness on COVID-19 risk perception (Ju and You, 2022). In Brazil, leftists or centrists were more likely to adopt virus containment measures and adhere to physical distancing (Sampaio et al , 2022), and individuals who see themselves as right-wing are less supportive of physical distancing and face masks than those who see themselves as left-wing (Barbieri and Bonini, 2021; Brosowsky et al , 2021; Newman et al , 2021).…”

Humanization of care: challenges after Covid-19 pandemic

“…People were subjected to sanitary measures, whereby public health priorities overlapped individual decisions. People were exposed to a broad disclosure of epidemiological data, thus establishing a feared atmosphere aggravated by conflicting information and low comprehension of science (Sampaio et al, 2022).…”