Social distancing practices have been widely recommended to curb the COVID-19 pandemic. However, despite the medical consensus, many citizens have resisted adhering to and/or supporting its implementation. While this resistance may stem from the non-negligible personal economic costs of implementing social distancing, we argue that it may also reside in more fundamental differences in normative principles and belief systems, as reflected by political orientation. In a study conducted in Brazil, we test the relative importance of these explanations by examining whether and how support for social distancing varies according to self-identified political orientation and personal economic vulnerability. Results show that while economic vulnerability does not influence support for social distancing, conservatives are systematically less supportive of these practices than liberals. Discrepancies in sensitivity to threats to the economic system help explain the phenomenon.

People tend to believe they are more (less) likely to experience positive (negative) outcomes than similar others. While research has consistently shown that feeling unrealistically optimistic about future events influences the adoption of self-protective behaviors, much less is known about the opposite relationship. We address this gap by examining whether and how self-protective behaviors influence unrealistic optimism in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Across two preregistered, high-powered experiments (N = 4,707), we document a generalized unrealistic optimism about the health risks associated with COVID-19. Critically, we show that prompting people to think about a precautionary behavior they often perform (i.e., mask wearing) magnifies this preexisting tendency. Egocentrism, but not self-enhancement and/or better-than-average effects, helps to explain the phenomenon. Theoretical contributions and substantive implications to health risk research and policy are discussed. Public Significance StatementThis research shows that past self-protective behaviors (e.g., mask wearing) enhance people's propensity to feel unrealistically safer than similar others. This finding suggests that although encouraging precautionary measures is fundamental to boost self-protection, communication strategies should not just focus on the safety benefits of such measures, but also ask individuals to be wary of this potential unintended psychological consequence.

Social distancing practices have been widely recommended to curb the COVID-19 pandemic. However, despite the medical consensus, many citizens have resisted adhering to and/or supporting its implementation. While this resistance may stem from the non-negligible personal economic costs of implementing social distancing, we argue that it may also reside in more fundamental differences in normative principles and belief systems, as reflected by political orientation. In a study conducted in Brazil, we test the relative importance of these explanations by examining whether and how support for social distancing varies according to self-identified political orientation and personal economic vulnerability. Results show that while economic vulnerability does not influence support for social distancing, conservatives are systematically less supportive of these practices than liberals. Discrepancies in sensitivity to threats to the economic system help explain the phenomenon.

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