Why are conservatives less concerned about the coronavirus (COVID-19) than liberals? Comparing political, experiential, and partisan messaging explanations

Abstract

Given research revealing conservatives are more sensitive to disease threat, it is curious that U.S. conservatives were less concerned than liberals with the COVID-19 pandemic. Across four studies that spanned almost ten months throughout the pandemic, we evaluated three potential reasons why conservatives were less concerned: (1) Motivated Political reasons (conservatives held COVID-specific political beliefs that motivated them to reduce concern), (2) Experiential reasons (conservatives were less directly affected by the outbreak than liberals), and (3) Conservative Messaging reasons (differential exposure to/trust in partisan conservative messaging). All four studies consistently showed evidence that political (and not experiential or partisan messaging) reasons more strongly mediated conservatives' lack of concern for COVID-19. Additional analyses further suggested that while they did not serve as strong mediators, experiential factors provided a boundary condition for the conservatism➔perceived threat relationship. These data on over 3000 participants are consistent with a new model of the ideology-disease outbreak interface that can be applied to both the ongoing pandemic and future disease outbreaks.

Moral Foundations Predict Perceptions of Moral Permissibility of COVID-19 Public Health Guideline Violations in United States University Students

“…Indeed, political conservatives have reported being less concerned about the threat of getting COVID-19 (Malloy and Schwartz, 2020;Conway et al, 2021), and less concerned about the threat it might have to the United States population (Deane et al, 2021). Some research suggests that this is due to conservatives' opposition to COVID-related restrictions, which makes them motivated to downplay the threat of COVID-19 (Conway et al, 2021).…”

“…Indeed, political conservatives have reported being less concerned about the threat of getting COVID-19 (Malloy and Schwartz, 2020;Conway et al, 2021), and less concerned about the threat it might have to the United States population (Deane et al, 2021). Some research suggests that this is due to conservatives' opposition to COVID-related restrictions, which makes them motivated to downplay the threat of COVID-19 (Conway et al, 2021). Republicans have been less supportive of government-mandated shutdowns, masking policies, and social-distancing compared with Democrats since the onset of the pandemic (Deane et al, 2021), and have been less likely to stay at home (Clinton et al, 2021) or report wearing masks (Howard, 2021).…”

Divided When Crisis Comes: How Perceived Self–Partner Disagreements over COVID-19 Prevention Measures Relate to Employee Work Outcomes at Home

“…Our results suggest that a family’s experience in times of crisis not only affected relationships among family members (manifested as a reduction in identification with the partner) but also further affected individuals’ work performance. Different responses toward COVID-19 prevention measures reflected differences in values and political ideologies between partners (Conway III et al, 2021 ) and thus had the effect of stimulating the appearance of deep-seated differences (Van Bavel et al, 2020 ) that worsened the interpersonal relationships within the family. The deterioration of the self–partner relationship further divided the relational unit between partners, exhausted individuals’ regulatory resources, and undermined their work outcomes.…”

“…To prevent people from falling ill, many societies have implemented a lockdown, which has included most businesses adopting a work-from-home model for employees (Baert et al, 2020;Cho, 2020;Duffy, 2020;Dubey & Tripathi, 2020). However, there have been considerable disagreements over whether we should sacrifice personal freedom and accept the social constraints imposed on us (Conway III et al, 2021;Van Bavel et al, 2020). Such disagreements, which reflect deep-seated value differences, can be found within a family unit, such as when self and his/her partner disagree over COVID-19 prevention measures, with the self more supporting prevention measures whereas the partner more against them or vice versa.…”

Proximal versus distal ecological stress: Socio-ecological influences on political freedom, well-being, and societal confidence in 159 nations

“…These reflections make it important to consider the match between ecological stressors and the potential that those stressors will be directly blamed -or not -on cultural factors (see also the related PAIR model specific to pandemics focusing on ideological matching; Conway et al, 2021). Indeed, some types of stressors may be inherently more likely to be chronically connected to attributional disounting for some kinds of beliefs.…”