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

John Kerr; Costas Panagopoulos; Sander van der Linden

doi:10.1016/j.paid.2021.110892

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

Pers Individ Dif. 2021 Sep:179:110892. doi: 10.1016/j.paid.2021.110892. Epub 2021 Apr 1.

Authors

John Kerr¹, Costas Panagopoulos², Sander van der Linden¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, Downing Site, Cambridge CB2 3EB, United Kingdom.
² Department of Political Science, Northeastern University, Renaissance Park 902, Boston, MA 02115, USA.

Abstract

Despite calls for political consensus, there is growing evidence that the public response to the COVID-19 pandemic has been politicized in the US. We examined the extent to which this polarization exists among the US public across two national studies. In a representative US sample (N = 699, March 2020) we find that liberals (compared to conservatives) perceive higher risk, place less trust in politicians to handle the pandemic, are more trusting of medical experts such as the WHO, and are more critical of the government response. We replicate these results in a second, pre-registered study (N = 1000; April 2020), and find that results are similar when considering partisanship, rather than political ideology. In both studies we also find evidence that political polarization extends beyond attitudes, with liberals consistently reporting engaging in a significantly greater number of health protective behaviors (e.g., wearing face masks) than conservatives. We discuss the possible drivers of polarization on COVID-19 attitudes and behaviors, and reiterate the need for fostering bipartisan consensus to effectively address and manage the COVID-19 pandemic.

Keywords: COVID-19; Coronavirus; Ideology; Partisanship; Polarization.