Restricted accessResearch articleFirst published online 2022-12
Were Americans’ Political Attitudes Linked to Objective Threats From COVID-19? An Examination of Data From Project Implicit During Initial Months of the Pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic has created objectively threatening situations in everyday life (e.g., unemployment, risk of infection), and researchers have begun to ask whether threats from the pandemic are linked to people’s political attitudes. However, scholars currently lack a systematic answer to this question. Here, we examined whether objective COVID-19 threats (cases, deaths, and government restrictions) occurring over the initial months of the pandemic (February–June 2020) were associated with seven different assessments of political attitudes among Project Implicit users in the United States (N = 34,581). We did not consistently observe meaningful associations between COVID-19 threats and political attitudes. The lack of consistent meaningful associations emerged regardless of the level of analysis (country, state, and county) or participant’s self-identified ideology. Collectively, these findings failed to find evidence that political attitudes were tied to COVID-19 threats in a meaningful way during the initial months of the pandemic.
AikenL.WestS. (1991). Multiple regression: Testing and interpreting interactions. SAGE.
2.
AltemeyerB. (1988). Enemies of freedom: Understanding right-wing authoritarianism. Jossey-Bass.
3.
AxtJ. R.Bar-AnanY.VianelloM. (2020). The relation between evaluation and racial categorization of emotional faces. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 11(2), 196–206.
4.
AzevedoF.JostJ. T.RothmundT.SterlingJ. (2019). Neoliberal ideology and the justification of inequality in capitalist societies: Why social and economic dimensions of ideology are intertwined. Journal of Social Issues, 75(1), 49–88.
5.
BeallA. T.HoferM. K.SchallerM. (2016). Infections and elections: Did an Ebola outbreak influence the 2014 US federal elections (and if so, how)?Psychological Science, 27(5), 595–605.
BoulwareL. E. (2020). Race disparities in the COVID-19 pandemic—Solutions lie in policy, not biology. JAMA Network Open, 3, e2018696.
8.
BrandtM. J.Turner-ZwinkelsaF. M.KarapirinleraB.Van LeeuwenaF.BenderaM.van OschaY.AdamsaB. (2021). The association between threat and politics simultaneously depends on the type of threat, the political domain, and the country. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 47, 324–343.
9.
BurkeB. L.KosloffS.LandauM. J. (2013). Death goes to the polls: A meta-analysis of mortality salience effects on political attitudes. Political Psychology, 34(2), 183–200.
10.
CalvilloD. P.RossB. J.GarciaR. J.SmelterT. J.RutchickA. M. (2020). Political ideology predicts perceptions of the threat of covid-19 (and susceptibility to fake news about it). Social Psychological and Personality Science, 11(8), 1119–1128.
CrawfordJ. T. (2017). Are conservatives more sensitive to threat than liberals? It depends on how we define threat and conservatism. Social Cognition, 35(4), 354–373.
13.
DuckittJ. H. (1992). Psychology and prejudice: A historical analysis and integrative framework. American Psychologist, 47(10), 1182–1193.
14.
EadehF. R.ChangK. K. (2020). Can threat increase support for liberalism? New insights into the relationship between threat and political attitudes. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 11(1), 88–96.
15.
EconomouA.KolliasC. (2015). Terrorism and political self-placement in European Union countries. Peace Economics, Peace Science and Public Policy, 21(2), 217–238.
16.
EverettJ. A. (2013). The 12 item social and economic conservatism scale (SECS). PLOS ONE, 8(12), Article e82131.
17.
FaulF.ErdfelderE.BuchnerA.LangA. G. (2009). Statistical power analyses using G* Power 3.1: Tests for correlation and regression analyses. Behavior Research Methods, 41(4), 1149–1160.
18.
FedericoC. M.DeasonG.FisherE. L. (2012). Ideological asymmetry in the relationship between epistemic motivation and political attitudes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 103(3), 381.
19.
FitzmauriceG. M.LairdN. M.WareJ. H. (2012). Applied longitudinal analysis. John Wiley.
20.
GollwitzerA.MartelC.BradyW. J.PärnametsP.FreedmanI. G.KnowlesE. D.Van BavelJ. J. (2020). Partisan differences in physical distancing are linked to health outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic. Nature Human Behaviour, 4, 1186–1197.
21.
GreenJ.EdgertonJ.NaftelD.ShoubK.CranmerS. J. (2020). Elusive consensus: Polarization in elite communication on the COVID-19 pandemic. Science Advances, 6, eabc2717.
22.
GullyS. M.IncalcaterraK. A.JoshiA.BeaubienJ. M. (2002). A meta-analysis of team-efficacy, potency, and performance: Interdependence and level of analysis as moderators of observed relationships. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87(5), 819–832.
23.
HarcourtJ.TaminA.LuX.KamiliS.SakthivelS. K.MurrayJ.. . . LiY. (2020). Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 from patient with coronavirus disease, United States. Emerging Infectious Diseases, 26(6), 1266–1273.
24.
HawkinsC. B.NosekB. A. (2012). Motivated independence? Implicit party identity predicts political judgments among self-proclaimed independents. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 38(11), 1437–1452.
25.
HoA. K.SidaniusJ.KteilyN.Sheehy-SkeffingtonJ.PrattoF.HenkelK. E.. . . StewartA. L. (2015). The nature of social dominance orientation: Theorizing and measuring preferences for intergroup inequality using the new SDO₇ scale. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 109(6), 1003–1028.
26.
InbarY.WestgateE. C.PizarroD. A.NosekB. A. (2016). Can a naturally occurring pathogen threat change social attitudes? Evaluations of gay men and lesbians during the 2014 Ebola epidemic. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 7(5), 420–427.
JostJ. T.NapierJ. L.ThorisdottirH.GoslingS. D.PalfaiT. P.OstafinB. (2007). Are needs to manage uncertainty and threat associated with political conservatism or ideological extremity?Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 33(7), 989–1007.
29.
JostJ. T.SternC.RuleN. O.SterlingJ. (2017). The politics of fear: Is there an ideological asymmetry in existential motivation?Social Cognition, 35(4), 324–353.
30.
JuddC. M.WestfallJ.KennyD. A. (2017). Experiments with more than one random factor: Designs, analytic models, and statistical power. Annual Review of Psychology, 68, 601–625.
31.
KarwowskiM.KowalM.GroyeckaA.BiałekM.LebudaI.SorokowskaA. (2020). When in danger, turn right: Does covid-19 threat promotes social conservatism and right-wing presidential candidates. Human Ethology Bulletin, 35, 37–48.
32.
LakensD.EversE. R. (2014). Sailing from the seas of chaos into the corridor of stability: Practical recommendations to increase the informational value of studies. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 9(3), 278–292.
33.
LambertA. J.EadehF. R.HansonE. J. (2019). Anger and its consequences for judgment and behavior: Recent developments in social and political psychology. In Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 59, pp. 103–173). Academic Press.
34.
MannF. D.KruegerR. F.VohsK. D. (2020). Personal economic anxiety in response to COVID-19. Personality and Individual Differences, 167, Article 110233.
35.
McClellandG. H. (2014). Nasty data: Unruly, ill-mannered observations can ruin your analysis. In ReisH. T.JuddC. M. (Eds.), Handbook of research methods in social and personality psychology (2nd ed., pp. 608–626). Cambridge University Press.
MottaM.SteculaD.FarhartC. (2020). How right-leaning media coverage of COVID-19 facilitated the spread of misinformation in the early stages of the pandemic in the US. Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue Canadienne de Science Politique, 53(2), 335–342.
38.
NailP. R.McGregorI.DrinkwaterA. E.SteeleG. M.ThompsonA. W. (2009). Threat causes liberals to think like conservatives. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 45(4), 901–907.
39.
NettleD.JohnsonE.JohnsonM.SaxeR. (2020). Why has the COVID-19 pandemic increased support for Universal Basic Income?https://psyarxiv.com/csr3u/
40.
NosekB. A.GreenwaldA. G.BanajiM. R. (2007). The Implicit Association Test at age 7: A methodological and conceptual review. In BarghJ. A. (Ed.), Social psychology and the unconscious: The automaticity of higher mental processes (pp. 265– 292). New York: Psychology Press.
41.
OfosuE. K.ChambersM. K.ChenJ. M.HehmanE. (2019). Same-sex marriage legalization associated with reduced implicit and explicit antigay bias. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 116(18), 8846–8851.
42.
O’SheaB.VitriolJ. A.FedericoC.ApplebyJ.WilliamsA. (in press). Exposure and aversion to human transmissible diseases predict conservative ideological and partisan preferences. Political Psychology.
43.
PennycookG.McPhetresJ.BagoB.RandD. G. (in press). Beliefs about COVID-19 in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States: A novel test of political polarization and motivated reasoning. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.
44.
ProulxT.InzlichtM.Harmon-JonesE. (2012). Understanding all inconsistency compensation as a palliative response to violated expectations. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 16, 285–291.
45.
RentfrowP. J.JokelaM. (2016). Geographical psychology: The spatial organization of psychological phenomena. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 25, 393–398.
46.
RosenfeldD. L.TomiyamaA. J. (2021). Can a pandemic make people more socially conservative? Political ideology, gender roles, and the case of COVID-19. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 51, 425–433.
47.
SalesS. M. (1972). Economic threat as a determinant of conversion rates in authoritarian and nonauthoritarian churches. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 23(3), 420–428.
SelvinH. C. (1958). Durkheim’s suicide and problems of empirical research. American Journal of Sociology, 63(6), 607–619.
50.
SmithK. B.OxleyD. R.HibbingM. V.AlfordJ. R.HibbingJ. R. (2011). Linking genetics and political attitudes: Reconceptualizing political ideology. Political Psychology, 32(3), 369–397.
51.
TerrizziJ. A.Jr.ShookN. J.McDanielM. A. (2013). The behavioral immune system and social conservatism: A meta-analysis. Evolution and Human Behavior, 34(2), 99–108.
van der ToornJ.JostJ. T.PackerD. J.NoorbaloochiS.Van BavelJ. J. (2017). In defense of tradition: Religiosity, conservatism, and opposition to same-sex marriage in North America. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 43(10), 1455–1468.
55.
WardM. D.GleditschK. S. (2018). Spatial regression models (Vol. 155). SAGE.
56.
WebsterG. D.HowellJ. L.LoseeJ. E.MaharE. A.WongsomboonV. (2021). Culture, COVID-19, and collectivism: A paradox of American exceptionalism?Personality and Individual Differences, 178, Article 110853.
57.
WhiteK. R.KinneyD.DanekR. H.SmithB.HarbenC. (2020). The Resistance to Change-Beliefs Scale: Validation of a new measure of conservative ideology. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 46(1), 20–35.
58.
WiwadD.MercierB.PiffP. K.ShariffA.AkninL. B. (2021). Recognizing the impact of COVID-19 on the poor alters attitudes towards poverty and inequality. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 93, Article 104083.
YamK. C.JacksonJ. C.BarnesC. M.LauJ.QinX.LeeH. Y. (2020). The rise of COVID-19 cases is associated with support for world leaders. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 117(41), 25429–25433.
61.
YzerbytV. Y.MullerD.JuddC. M. (2004). Adjusting researchers’ approach to adjustment: On the use of covariates when testing interactions. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 40, 424–431.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
