Here's why conservatives and liberals differ on COVID-19

 

This seems to explain something I have observed, that conservatives tend to define themselves as "patriotic" because of their hostility to those they see as enemies of our countries, while at the same time being indifferent or hostile to the well-being of our country, like our environment, health of our citizens, etc.

I suspect that another aspect is conservatives higher reaction of fear, so that they often minimize or discount threats, in order to reduce their fears.

 

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-11/lu-hwc111320.php

 

News Release 13-Nov-2020
New Lehigh University College of Business study looks at getting everyone to agree on the pandemic threat
Lehigh University

 

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, political ideology has been perhaps the strongest predictor of consumers' perceptions of the coronavirus' threat. According to a new study from Lehigh University's College of Business, the differences between conservative and liberal responses to COVID-19 are mitigated when people perceive the virus itself to have agency -- the ability to control its own actions and thus exert power over people.

Conservatives are generally more sensitive to threats that are relatively high in agency, propose Daniel Zane, assistant professor of marketing in Lehigh University's College of Business, and co-author Luke Nowlan, assistant professor of marketing at KU Leuven, Belgium, in their study.

"In the context of the pandemic, you have these players -- the policymakers, the American public, media organizations, your neighbors - that, at least relative to the unobservable virus, have more agency," says Zane, "whereas this virus has less agency."

According to the paper, "Getting Conservatives and Liberals to Agree on the COVID-19 Threat," published in the Journal of the Association for Consumer Research in September, conservatives tend to see free will as the primary driver of outcomes in life, whereas liberals are more accepting of the idea that randomness plays a role. Compared to liberals, conservatives tend to attribute outcomes to purposeful actions. So in the context of the pandemic, they're more likely to blame any negative outcomes in their lives on these more agentic policymakers or fellow Americans rather than the virus itself.

"According to our study, conservatives might at least in part be less likely to wear masks because they don't feel as threatened by the virus itself," says Zane. "Any hardships that they're facing in their lives around health, financial issues, even going to movie theaters or shopping malls, might not necessarily trace back to the virus for them. So, they feel like they don't have to protect themselves from it."

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