Does COVID‐19 affect people of all classes equally? In the current research, we focus on the social issue of risk inequality during the early stages of the COVID‐19 pandemic. Using a nationwide survey conducted in China ( N = 1,137), we predicted and found that compared to higher‐class individuals, lower‐class participants reported a stronger decline in self‐rated health as well as economic well‐being due to the COVID‐19 outbreak. At the same time, we examined participants' beliefs regarding the distribution of risks. The results demonstrated that although lower‐class individuals were facing higher risks, they expressed lesser belief in such a risk inequality than their higher‐class counterparts. This tendency was partly mediated by their stronger endorsement of system‐justifying beliefs. The findings provide novel evidence of the misperception of risk inequality among the disadvantaged in the context of COVID‐19. Implications for science and policy are discussed.

Individuals increase their support for social systems in response to the threat, panic, and uncertainty that characterized the COVID‐19 pandemic. This could be because a powerful social system can compensate for a lack of control at the individual level. However, the levels of public support for national versus local systems could be different in China. Two studies investigate whether people support the national more strongly than the local system during the COVID‐19 pandemic. Study 1 analyzed data of 3593 participants from China; the results showed that participants reported higher levels of support for the national system than the local. In Study 2, we further tested a possible moderator for it. With a sample of 275 participants, we found that the difference between public support for national and local systems in China was based on the perceived higher response efficacy with the national government. Implications for research on system justification and governmental pandemic responses were discussed.

Although the health and economic risks of COVID-19 may differ for higher- and lower-socioeconomic-status (SES) populations, some studies found that people with lower SES do not necessarily experience more psychological panic. In this research, we examine how SES is related with psychological panic during the COVID-19 pandemic using a large nationwide Chinese sample. Participants were 933 adults (mean age = 30.04, SD = 8.19) who completed an online questionnaire between 11 and 12 February 2020. Lower SES individuals have higher trust in government and thus experience less psychological panic, and the indirect effect of this trust suppresses the direct negative association between SES and psychological panic. In addition to this difference in trust in government between lower- and higher-status individuals, the indirect effect of the trust only exists among people with low (not high) authoritarian personalities. This study provides evidence that political trust may serve as a buffer, suppressing the negative association between SES and psychological panic; thus, policies and actions enhancing political trust are vital to support the mental health of individuals with lower SES during the pandemic, especially for citizens with low authoritarian personalities.