COVID-19 & Protective Behaviors: The Role of Fear, Partisanship, and Gender

• In Event: Gender and Decision-Making

Abstract

The COVID-19 has changed lives around the world. Public health officials agree that a collective
response is needed to slow the spread of the pandemic. Yet reactions of citizens and elected officials alike are deeply divided along partisan lines. To what extent does fear impact citizens’ willingness to take protective behaviors that have become politicized? In an era in which partisanship seems to supersede all other political influences in terms of behavioral impact, the results of this research offer a departure. Using a survey experiment on a nationally diverse online sample, I find evidence that women’s experience of fear associated with the coronavirus pandemic can pull against their tendency toward strictly partisan behaviors. More specifically, the impact of fear on an individual’s intent to take protective health behaviors is moderated by their gender. Fear associated with the coronavirus pandemic significantly increases women’s (but not men’s) intent to take protective actions. Broadly, fear is directly associated with increased protective behavior across partisanship – but it is Republican and Democratic women that are driving this effect. To dig deeper, I turn to examination of the role of sentiment and emotionality in influencing these relationships (determined from qualitative open-ended emotional inductions).

Author

• Kristyn L. Karl, Stevens Institute of Technology