Political polarization on COVID-19 pandemic response in the United States

Kerr, John R.; Panagopoulos, Costas; Linden, Sander van der

doi:10.1016/j.paid.2021.110892

Cited by 238 publications

(238 citation statements)

References 67 publications

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“…This pattern was evident for perceptions of COVID-19 risk and behavior change intentions as well. Kerr et al (2021) investigated the extent of the polarization among the US public across two national studies. The first study conducted in March showed that liberals (compared with conservatives) perceived higher risk, exhibited less trust in politicians to effectively handle the pandemic and more trust of medical experts, such as the WHO, and reported engaging in more health-protective actions.…”

Section: Motivated Reasoning-a Case For Politicization Of the Crisismentioning

confidence: 99%

Analytic Thinking and Political Orientation in the Corona Crisis

Maglić¹,

Pavlović²,

Franc³

2021

Front. Psychol.

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With much unknown about the new coronavirus, the scientific consensus is that human hosts are crucial to its spread and reproduction—the more people behave like regular socializing beings they are, the more likely it is that the virus will propagate. Hence, many nations worldwide have mandated physical-distancing measures. In the current preregistered research, we focus on examining two factors that may help explain differences in adherence to COVID-19 preventive behaviors and policy support across different countries—political orientation and analytic thinking. We positioned our research within the dual-process framework of human reasoning and investigated the role of cognitive reflection, open-minded thinking, and political ideology in determining COVID-19 responsible behavior (physical distancing and maintaining hygiene) and support for restrictive COVID-19 policies on a sample of 12,490 participants from 17 countries. We have not been able to detect substantial relationships of political orientation with preventive behaviors and policy support, and overall found no reliable evidence of politicization, nor polarization regarding the issue. The results of structural equation modeling showed that the inclination towards COVID-19 preventive measures and their endorsement were defined primarily by the tendency of open-minded thinking. Specifically, open-minded thinking was shown to be a predictor of all three criteria—avoiding physical contact, maintaining physical hygiene, and supporting COVID-19 restrictive mitigation policies. Cognitive reflection was predictive of lesser adherence to stricter hygiene and only very weakly predictive of lesser policy support. Furthermore, there was no evidence of these effects varying across political contexts. The mediation analysis suggested a partial mediation effect of COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs on the relationships of open-mindedness and cognitive reflection with physical distancing (but not adherence to stricter hygiene) and COVID-19 policy support, albeit very small and significant primarily due to sample size. There was also no evidence of these effects varying across political contexts. Finally, we have not been able to find strong evidence of political orientation modifying the relationship between analytical thinking and COVID-19 behaviors and policy support, although we explored the pattern of these effects in the US and Canadian samples for exploratory purposes and comparison with other similar studies.

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Section: Motivated Reasoning-a Case For Politicization Of the Crisismentioning

confidence: 99%

Analytic Thinking and Political Orientation in the Corona Crisis

Maglić¹,

Pavlović²,

Franc³

2021

Front. Psychol.

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“…COVID-19 emerged as a pandemic in the first quarter of the year 2020 and had social ( Yezli and Khan, 2020 ), ecological ( Muhammad et al, 2020 ), political ( Kerr et al, 2021 ), and economic ( Qian et al, 2021 ) effects all over the world. At present, no internationally recognized measures are used as standards to cure COVID-19 patients ( Li et al, 2020 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

What Explains Natives and Sojourners Preventive Health Behavior in a Pandemic: Role of Media and Scientific Self-Efficacy

et al. 2021

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The COVID-19 pandemic triggered a severe global public health emergency. The current research investigated and compared “Natives and Sojourners” health-protective behavior in Mainland China during the pandemic. We adopted a unified view to propose our theoretical model by adapting the Health Belief Model (HBM) and Institutional Theory (IT). The data obtained through an online survey questionnaire from 435 respondents during the second and third quarters of were analyzed. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to empirically analyze the proposed model. The media self-efficacy (MSE), scientific self-efficacy (SSE), perceived health risks (PHRs), and the perceived benefits of being protected have positive and significant effects on the definition of health-protective behavioral intentions among natives and sojourners in mainland China. Media and SSE can play a strategic role in formulating public health-protective behavior. The current research recommends an effective communication with sojourners during crisis for them to be a part of the national crisis management plan (i.e., infectious disease).

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“…For exploratory purposes, we assessed potential heterogeneity in the receptivity to our messages along political ideological orientation as preferences for public health measures, including vaccination has been shown to differ along political ideology (31)(32)(33). We interacted the pooled treatment indicator with self-reported political ideological orientation (conservative, moderate, or liberal, see Table S11 in SI Appendix).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Preferences for public health measures, including vaccination differ along political ideology (31)(32)(33), and the gap between COVID-19 vaccination rates in blue and red states have continued to grow (5). It is therefore also particularly noteworthy that our messages work well among individuals identifying as political moderates and conservatives.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Video-based messages to reduce COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy and nudge vaccination intentions

Jensen¹,

Ayers²,

Koskan³

2021

Preprint

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Vaccines are highly effective for curbing the spread of SARS-CoV-2. Yet, millions of Americans remain hesitant about getting vaccinated, jeopardizing the collective benefits from potential herd immunity and our ability to end the COVID-19 pandemic. We show that brief video-based messages of encouragement addressing specific COVID-19 vaccine concerns increase vaccination intentions. Intentions, in turn, predict future vaccine uptake in our data. Our experiment also reveals that increased confidence in COVID-19 vaccines and perceived behavioral control to get vaccinated are the key psychological drivers influencing willingness to get vaccinated. Importantly, our messages only increased vaccination intentions among people who identify as conservative or moderates, while liberals are unaffected due to high levels of pre-existing vaccine acceptability. Our findings corroborate the real-world behavioral significance of vaccination intentions, and devise how even short, scalable online messages can provide governments and health authorities an inexpensive, yet effective tool for increasing COVID-19 vaccinations among populations most reluctant to get them.

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Political polarization on COVID-19 pandemic response in the United States

Cited by 238 publications

References 67 publications

Analytic Thinking and Political Orientation in the Corona Crisis

Analytic Thinking and Political Orientation in the Corona Crisis

What Explains Natives and Sojourners Preventive Health Behavior in a Pandemic: Role of Media and Scientific Self-Efficacy

Video-based messages to reduce COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy and nudge vaccination intentions

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