IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v305y2022ics0277953622003975.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Perceived risk, political polarization, and the willingness to follow COVID-19 mitigation guidelines

Author

Listed:
  • Block, Ray
  • Burnham, Michael
  • Kahn, Kayla
  • Peng, Rachel
  • Seeman, Jeremy
  • Seto, Christopher

Abstract

Risk assessment and response is important for understanding human behavior. The divisive context surrounding the coronavirus pandemic inspires our exploration of risk perceptions and the polarization of mitigation practices (i.e., the degree to which the behaviors of people on the political “Left” diverge from those on the “Right”). Specifically, we investigate the extent to which the political polarization of willingness to comply with mitigation behaviors changes with risk perceptions.

Suggested Citation

  • Block, Ray & Burnham, Michael & Kahn, Kayla & Peng, Rachel & Seeman, Jeremy & Seto, Christopher, 2022. "Perceived risk, political polarization, and the willingness to follow COVID-19 mitigation guidelines," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 305(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:305:y:2022:i:c:s0277953622003975
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2022.115091
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953622003975
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socscimed.2022.115091?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nicolás Ajzenman & Tiago Cavalcanti & Daniel Da Mata, 2023. "More than Words: Leaders' Speech and Risky Behavior during a Pandemic," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 15(3), pages 351-371, August.
    2. Joshua M. Blank & Daron Shaw, 2015. "Does Partisanship Shape Attitudes toward Science and Public Policy? The Case for Ideology and Religion," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 658(1), pages 18-35, March.
    3. Shana Kushner Gadarian & Sara Wallace Goodman & Thomas B Pepinsky, 2021. "Partisanship, health behavior, and policy attitudes in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(4), pages 1-13, April.
    4. John M. Barrios & Yael Hochberg, 2020. "Risk Perception Through the Lens of Politics in the Time of the COVID-19 Pandemic," NBER Working Papers 27008, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. James N. Druckman & Mary C. McGrath, 2019. "The evidence for motivated reasoning in climate change preference formation," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 9(2), pages 111-119, February.
    6. Allcott, Hunt & Boxell, Levi & Conway, Jacob & Gentzkow, Matthew & Thaler, Michael & Yang, David, 2020. "Polarization and public health: Partisan differences in social distancing during the coronavirus pandemic," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 191(C).
    7. Nicolás Ajzenman & Tiago Cavalcanti & Daniel Da Mata, 2020. "More than Words: Leaders' Speech and Risky Behavior During a Pandemic," Department of Economics Working Papers wp_gob_2020_03, Universidad Torcuato Di Tella.
    8. Michele Roccato & Silvia Russo & Pasquale Colloca & Nicoletta Cavazza, 2021. "The Lasting Effects of the COVID‐19 Pandemic on Support for Anti‐Democratic Political Systems: A Six‐Month Longitudinal Study," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 102(5), pages 2285-2295, September.
    9. Leon, Andrew C. & Heo, Moonseong, 2009. "Sample sizes required to detect interactions between two binary fixed-effects in a mixed-effects linear regression model," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 53(3), pages 603-608, January.
    10. Lumley, Thomas, 2004. "Analysis of Complex Survey Samples," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 9(i08).
    11. Seth Flaxman & Swapnil Mishra & Axel Gandy & H. Juliette T. Unwin & Thomas A. Mellan & Helen Coupland & Charles Whittaker & Harrison Zhu & Tresnia Berah & Jeffrey W. Eaton & Mélodie Monod & Azra C. Gh, 2020. "Estimating the effects of non-pharmaceutical interventions on COVID-19 in Europe," Nature, Nature, vol. 584(7820), pages 257-261, August.
    12. Monroe, Burt L. & Colaresi, Michael P. & Quinn, Kevin M., 2008. "Fightin' Words: Lexical Feature Selection and Evaluation for Identifying the Content of Political Conflict," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 16(4), pages 372-403.
    13. James N. Druckman & Samara Klar & Yanna Krupnikov & Matthew Levendusky & John Barry Ryan, 2021. "Affective polarization, local contexts and public opinion in America," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 5(1), pages 28-38, January.
    14. Nicholas Epley & Thomas Gilovich, 2016. "The Mechanics of Motivated Reasoning," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 30(3), pages 133-140, Summer.
    15. Cavalcanti, Tiago & Ajzenman, Nicolas & da Mata, Daniel, 2020. "More than Words: Leaders’ Speech and Risky Behavior During a Pandemic," CEPR Discussion Papers 14707, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    16. Syon P. Bhanot & Daniel J. Hopkins, 2020. "Partisan polarization and resistance to elite messages: Results from survey experiments on social distancing," Journal of Behavioral Public Administration, Center for Experimental and Behavioral Public Administration, vol. 3(2).
    17. Nicholas Francis Havey, 2020. "Partisan public health: how does political ideology influence support for COVID-19 related misinformation?," Journal of Computational Social Science, Springer, vol. 3(2), pages 319-342, November.
    18. Trkman, Marina & Popovič, Aleš & Trkman, Peter, 2021. "The impact of perceived crisis severity on intention to use voluntary proximity tracing applications," International Journal of Information Management, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Nelson, Victoria & Bashyal, Bidhan & Tan, Pang-Ning & Argyris, Young Anna, 2024. "Vaccine rhetoric on social media and COVID-19 vaccine uptake rates: A triangulation using self-reported vaccine acceptance," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 348(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lucia Freira & Marco Sartorio & Cynthia Boruchowicz & Florencia Lopez Boo & Joaquin Navajas, 2021. "The interplay between partisanship, forecasted COVID-19 deaths, and support for preventive policies," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 8(1), pages 1-10, December.
    2. Maxim Ananyev & Michael Poyker & Yuan Tian, 2021. "The safest time to fly: pandemic response in the era of Fox News," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 34(3), pages 775-802, July.
    3. Deiana, Claudio & Geraci, Andrea & Mazzarella, Gianluca & Sabatini, Fabio, 2022. "Can relief measures nudge compliance in a public health crisis? Evidence from a kinked fiscal policy rule," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 202(C), pages 407-428.
    4. Rafkin, Charlie & Shreekumar, Advik & Vautrey, Pierre-Luc, 2021. "When guidance changes: Government stances and public beliefs," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 196(C).
    5. Khan, Adnan & Nasim, Sanval & Shaukat, Mahvish & Stegmann, Andreas, 2021. "Building trust in the state with information: Evidence from urban Punjab," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 202(C).
    6. Leonardo Bursztyn & Aakaash Rao & Christopher Roth & David Yanagizawa-Drott, 2020. "Misinformation During a Pandemic," Working Papers 2020-44, Becker Friedman Institute for Research In Economics.
    7. Fazio, Andrea & Reggiani, Tommaso & Sabatini, Fabio, 2022. "The political cost of sanctions: Evidence from COVID-19," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 126(9), pages 872-878.
    8. Antoci, Angelo & Sabatini, Fabio & Sacco, Pier Luigi & Sodini, Mauro, 2022. "Experts vs. policymakers in the COVID-19 policy response," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 201(C), pages 22-39.
    9. Joebson Maurilio Alves dos Santos & Tatiane Almeida de Menezes & Rodrigo Gomes de Arruda & Flávia Emília Cavalcante Valença Fernandes, 2023. "Climate influences on COVID‐19 prevalence rates: An application of a panel data spatial model," Regional Science Policy & Practice, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 15(3), pages 456-473, April.
    10. Sandra Aguilar-Gomez & Eva O. Arceo-Gomez & Elia De la Cruz Toledo & Pedro J. Torres López, 2021. "Leadership, public health messaging, and containment of mobility in Mexico during the COVID-19 pandemic," Documentos de Trabajo 18893, The Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association (LACEA).
    11. Guglielmo Briscese & Maddalena Grignani & Stephen Stapleton, 2022. "Crises and Political Polarization: Towards a Better Understanding of the Timing and Impact of Shocks and Media," Papers 2202.12339, arXiv.org, revised Feb 2023.
    12. Aksoy, Cevat Giray & Ganslmeier, Michael & Poutvaara, Panu, 2020. "Public Attention and Policy Responses to COVID-19 Pandemic," IZA Discussion Papers 13427, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    13. Seres, Gyula & Balleyer, Anna Helen & Cerutti, Nicola & Danilov, Anastasia & Friedrichsen, Jana & Liu, Yiming & Süer, Müge, 2021. "Face masks increase compliance with physical distancing recommendations during the COVID-19 pandemic," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 7(2), pages 139-158.
    14. Diane Alexander & Ezra Karger, 2023. "Do Stay-at-Home Orders Cause People to Stay at Home? Effects of Stay-at-Home Orders on Consumer Behavior," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 105(4), pages 1017-1027, July.
    15. Tian, Yuan & Caballero, Maria Esther & Kovak, Brian K., 2022. "Social learning along international migrant networks," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 195(C), pages 103-121.
    16. Andrea Fazio & Tomasso Reggiani & Fabio Sabatini, 2021. "The political cost of lockdown´s enforcement," MUNI ECON Working Papers 2021-04, Masaryk University, revised Feb 2023.
    17. Alexandre Gori Maia & Jose Daniel Morales Martinez & Leticia Junqueira Marteleto & Cristina Guimaraes Rodrigues & Luiz Gustavo Sereno, 2023. "Can the Content of Social Networks Explain Epidemic Outbreaks?," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 42(1), pages 1-34, February.
    18. Seres, Gyula & Balleyer, Anna & Cerutti, Nicola & Friedrichsen, Jana & Süer, Müge, 2021. "Face mask use and physical distancing before and after mandatory masking: No evidence on risk compensation in public waiting lines," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 192(C), pages 765-781.
    19. Chiara Natalie Focacci & Pak Hung Lam & Yu Bai, 2022. "Choosing the right COVID-19 indicator: crude mortality, case fatality, and infection fatality rates influence policy preferences, behaviour, and understanding," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 9(1), pages 1-8, December.
    20. Christopher Avery & William Bossert & Adam Clark & Glenn Ellison & Sara Fisher Ellison, 2020. "An Economist's Guide to Epidemiology Models of Infectious Disease," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 34(4), pages 79-104, Fall.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:305:y:2022:i:c:s0277953622003975. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.