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 are less concerned than liberals with the COVID-19 pandemic. Across three studies, we evaluated three potential reasons why conservatives are less concerned: (1) Motivated Political (conservatives hold COVID-specific political beliefs that motivate them to reduce concern), (2) Experiential (conservatives are less directly affected by the outbreak than liberals), and (3) Conservative Messaging (differential exposure to/trust in partisan conservative messaging). All three studies consistently showed evidence that political (and not experiential or partisan messaging) reasons more strongly mediate 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 offer a model of the ideology-disease outbreak interface that can be applied to both the ongoing pandemic and future disease outbreaks.