The Onset of the COVID-19 Pandemic Made People Feel Threatened, but Had a Limited Impact on Political Attitudes in the United States

Abstract

We investigated if the COVID-19 pandemic’s onset caused changes in political attitudes. Influential theories predict that the pandemic’s onset will cause people to adopt more conservative attitudes, more culturally conservative attitudes, or more extreme attitudes. We comprehensively tested the external validity of these predictions by estimating the causal effect of the pandemic’s onset on 84 political attitudes and eight perceived threats using fine-grained repeated cross-sectional data (Study 1, N = 232,684) and panel data (Study 2, N = 552) collected in the United States. Although the pandemic’s onset caused feelings of threat, the onset only caused limited attitude change (six conservative shifts, four extremity shifts, 12 liberal shifts, 62 no change). Prominent theories of threat and politics did not make accurate predictions for this major societal threat. Our results highlight the necessity of testing psychological theories’ predictive powers in real-life circumstances.

Left and right ideological orientations as intragroup strategies of cultural preservation and promotion

“…When threatened, people may become more conservative (called the conservative shift; Godefroidt, 2023), underscoring the protective function of conservatism. However, this too depends on the context and situation (e.g., Brandt et al., 2023). People often respond to threats by clinging to their groups and doubling down on their ideological beliefs (either liberal or conservative) rather than becoming more conservative (Burke et al., 2010; Greenberg et al., 1990; Heine et al., 2006).…”