Of pathogens and party lines: Social conservatism positively associates with COVID-19 precautions among U.S. Democrats but not Republicans

Abstract

Social liberals tend to be less pathogen-avoidant than social conservatives, a pattern consistent with a model wherein ideological differences stem from differences in threat reactivity. Here we investigate if and how individual responses to a shared threat reflect those patterns of ideological difference. In seeming contradiction to the general association between social conservatism and pathogen avoidance, the more socially conservative political party in the United States has more consistently downplayed the dangers of COVID-19 during the ongoing pandemic. This puzzle offers an opportunity to examine the contributions of multiple factors to disease avoidance. We investigated the relationship between social conservatism and COVID-19 precautionary behavior in light of the partisan landscape of the United States. We explored whether consumption of, and attitudes toward, different sources of information, as well as differential evaluation of various threats caused by the pandemic—such as direct health costs versus indirect harms to the economy and individual liberties—shape partisan differences in responses to the pandemic in ways that overwhelm the contributions of social conservatism. In two pre-registered studies, socially conservative attitudes correlate with self-reported COVID-19 prophylactic behaviors, but only among Democrats. Reflecting larger societal divisions, among Republicans and Independents, the absence of a positive relationship between social conservatism and COVID-19 precautions appears driven by lower trust in scientists, lower trust in liberal and moderate sources, lesser consumption of liberal news media, and greater economic conservatism.

Constituents’ Inferences of Local Governments’ Goals and the Relationship Between Political Party and Belief in COVID-19 Misinformation: Cross-sectional Survey of Twitter Followers of State Public Health Departments

“…In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, politicians from the Republican Party and right-leaning media figures downplayed the threat of COVID-19 in comparison to Democratic politicians and left-leaning media figures while focusing on the economic damages resulting from widespread business closures and the threat to individuals' personal liberties [18,19]. As a result, media and political figures' attitudes toward the COVID-19 pandemic cascaded to Republican supporters, affecting individuals' compliance with public health guidelines, including mask wearing and social distancing [3,[19][20][21]. Given that extant research suggests that Republicans are exposed to more persuasive messages containing misinformation from their party leaders compared to Democrats [3,[17][18][19][20][21], we posit the following hypothesis: Republicans endorse greater levels of COVID-19 misinformation than Democrats (hypothesis 1 [H1]).…”

“…As a result, media and political figures' attitudes toward the COVID-19 pandemic cascaded to Republican supporters, affecting individuals' compliance with public health guidelines, including mask wearing and social distancing [3,[19][20][21]. Given that extant research suggests that Republicans are exposed to more persuasive messages containing misinformation from their party leaders compared to Democrats [3,[17][18][19][20][21], we posit the following hypothesis: Republicans endorse greater levels of COVID-19 misinformation than Democrats (hypothesis 1 [H1]).…”

Validation of the COVID-19 Transmission Misinformation Scale and Conditional Indirect Negative Effects on Wearing a Mask in Public

“…Correlations across a variety of measures were examined to assess discriminant validity and uniqueness as a measure [114,115]. The researchers correlated the CTMS with the following measures: fear of COVID-19 (i.e., degree of fear to the novel coronavirus) (alpha = 0.82) [116], callousness (i.e., rigidity in ideas) (alpha = 0.85) [81,88], conscientious (i.e., following rules/norms) (alpha = 0.81) [117], conservatism (i.e., right-wing ideology) (alpha = 0.83) [118], generic conspiracy beliefs (i.e., credence to unproven conspiracies) (alpha = 0.95) [101], Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) (i.e., state of emotions) (alpha = 0.87) [119], perceived vulnerability to disease (i.e., estimated harm of illnesses) (alpha = 0.82) [120], variety seeking (i.e., diversity in selection) (alpha = 0.81) [121], risk taking (i.e., exposure to threats/dangers) (alpha = 0.85) [83], and compassion (i.e., concern for suffering) (alpha = 0.84) [122]. Correlation is not evidence to support causation.…”

Keep your distance: Different roles for knowledge and affect in predicting social distancing behavior

“…Each of these independently predicted social distancing and varied between the groups, with community members being relatively more conservative in political views (while still leaning toward the liberal side) and more educated than students on average. Recent work has linked politically conservative attitudes with sensitivity to COVID-19 during the early stages of the pandemic (Samore et al, 2021) as well as education with having greater quantity and quality of information about COVID-19, which in turn leads to more engagement in precautionary behaviors (Lammers et al, 2020; Reisdorf et al, 2021). Interestingly, in our data, quantity and quality of knowledge about COVID-19 were significantly correlated among community members, but not among students.…”