The politicized pandemic: Ideological polarization and the behavioral response to COVID-19

Gianluca Grimalda, Fabrice Murtin, David Pipke, Louis Putterman and Matthias Sutter
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David Pipke: Kiel Institute for the World Economy

No 2022_1, Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods from Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods

Abstract: We investigate the relationship between political attitudes and prosociality in a survey of a representative sample of the U.S. population during the first summer of the COVID-19 pandemic. We find that an experimental measure of prosociality correlates positively with adherence to protective behaviors. Liberal political ideology predicts higher levels of protective behavior than conservative ideology, independently of the differences in prosociality across the two groups. Differences between liberals and conservatives are up to 4.4 times smaller in their behavior than in judging the government’s crisis management. This result suggests that U.S. Americans are more polarized on ideological than behavioral grounds.

Keywords: Polarization; Ideology; Trust in politicians; COVID-19; Prosociality; Health behavior; Worries (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D01 D72 D91 H11 H12 I12 I18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022-01-20
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Related works:
Journal Article: The politicized pandemic: Ideological polarization and the behavioral response to COVID-19 (2023)
Working Paper: The Politicized Pandemic: Ideological Polarization and the Behavioral Response to COVID-19 (2022)
Working Paper: The Politicized Pandemic: Ideological Polarization and the Behavioral Response to COVID-19 (2022)
Working Paper: The politicized pandemic: Ideological polarization and the behavioral response to COVID-19 (2022)
Working Paper: The politicized pandemic: Ideological polarization and the behavioral response to COVID-19 (2022)
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