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Download Preprint COVID-19 PANDEMIC AND POLITICAL IDEOLOGY 1 1 Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic Reflect the Dual Evolutionary Foundations of 2 Political Ideology 1 2, 3 1, 4 3 Kyle Fischer* , Ananish Chaudhuri , & Quentin D. Atkinson* 1 4 School of Psychology, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand 2 5 Department of Economics, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand 3 6 CESifo, Munich, Germany 4 7 Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Jena, Germany 8 This working paper is still under peer review. 9 *Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to: 10 Quentin D. Atkinson (e-mail: [email protected]) or Kyle Fischer (e-mail: 11 [email protected]), Floor 3, Building 302, 23 Symonds Street, Auckland, 1010, New 12 Zealand. 13 Data, Code, and Materials are available here: 14 https://osf.io/mv2j6/?view_only=2c24869169934b5993841c1eb4058bbf 15 This study is pre-registered, details of which can be found here: 16 https://aspredicted.org/blind.php?x=xs6jm8 17 We have no known conflict of interest to disclose. 18 No data used in this study have been used in any previous publications. COVID-19 PANDEMIC AND POLITICAL IDEOLOGY 2 19 ABSTRACT 20 Opposition to COVID-19 response measures from many conservatives is puzzling given the 21 well-established link between conservatism and threat-sensitivity and strong pandemic 22 responses from many conservative nations. We argue a resolution is provided by the ‘dual 23 evolutionary foundations’ theory of political ideology, which holds that ideology varies along 24 two dimensions, reflecting trade-offs between: threat-driven conformity vs. individualism, and 25 empathy-driven co-operation vs. competition. We test predictions derived from this theory 26 using longitudinal data from a UK sample on widely-used measures of the two dimensions – 27 ‘right-wing authoritarianism’ (RWA) and ‘social dominance orientation’ (SDO), respectively. 28 Consistent with the theory, RWA but not SDO significantly increased following the pandemic, 29 and worry about COVID-19 predicts this effect. Moreover, consistent with the theory, higher 30 RWA predicts more worried and conformist/norm-enforcing responses, while lower SDO 31 predicts more cooperative/empathic responses. These findings help explain paradoxical prior 32 results and highlight divergent motives across the ideological landscape that may be useful for 33 managing pandemic responses. 34 Keywords: COVID-19 pandemic, political ideology, longitudinal, authoritarianism, social 35 dominance orientation, threat, co-operation 36 Word count: abstract = 154; main text = 8,454 (excl. ref. list); figure/table captions = 371. 37 INTRODUCTION 38 In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, a popular view has gained ground that liberals are 39 in favour of lockdowns to prevent the spread of the virus while conservatives are focused on 40 resuming activities to prevent an economic downturn. This is supported by studies showing an 41 association between conservative political ideology and reduced support for and compliance 42 with pandemic prevention measures, at both the individual level (Allcott et al. 2020; Van Bavel 43 et al. 2020; Calvillo et al. 2020; Christensen et al. 2020; Clements 2020; Conway III et al. 2020; COVID-19 PANDEMIC AND POLITICAL IDEOLOGY 3 44 Everett et al. 2020; Gadarian, Goodman, and Pepinsky 2021; Makridis and Rothwell 2020; 45 Pennycook et al. 2021; Raihani and de Wit 2020; Rothgerber et al. 2020) and population level 46 (Barrios and Hochberg 2020; Frey, Chen, and Presidente 2020; Gollwitzer et al. 2020; Painter 47 and Qiu 2021). However, such a conclusion appears inconsistent with the well-known link 48 between conservatism and increased threat-sensitivity, including pathogen aversion (Hibbing, 49 Smith, and Alford 2014; Shaffer and Duckitt 2013). Moreover, it remains unclear what 50 psychological mechanisms underlie these observed differences in responses to COVID-19, or 51 why some apparently conservative or “tight” populations (e.g., Saudi Arabia, India, and South 52 Korea) have in fact responded to the pandemic by implementing strict mitigating measures 53 relatively swiftly (Frey, Chen, and Presidente 2020; Gelfand et al. 2021). One potential solution 54 to this apparent paradox comes from research in social and political psychology indicating that 55 a unidimensional view of politics as fundamentally ‘conservative’ versus ‘liberal’ misses 56 important features of the political landscape (Claessens et al. 2020; Duckitt and Sibley 2009). 57 As highlighted in a recent review article, a unidimensional view of political ideology is, if 58 not incorrect, then certainly incomplete (Claessens et al. 2020). Unidimensional scales often 59 have low external validity and produce more than one latent variable in factor analyses (Duckitt 60 and Sibley 2009; Treier and Hillygus 2009). In contrast, over the last few decades scholars 61 using a diverse range of methodologies and theoretical frameworks have found consistent 62 support for two distinct dimensions underlying variation in political ideology. The first 63 dimension, linked to measures like ‘social dominance orientation’ (SDO) (Duckitt and Sibley 64 2009), ‘hierarchy vs. egalitarianism’ (Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner 1998), and ‘vertical 65 vs. horizontal values’ (Triandis and Gelfand 1998), predicts views on issues such as inequality, 66 taxation, and social welfare – people high in SDO, for example, tend to be on the political right, 67 and hold views that are more economically conservative (Duriez and Van Hiel 2002; Lönnqvist 68 and Kivikangas 2019; Perry and Sibley 2013; Pratto et al. 1994). The second dimension, linked COVID-19 PANDEMIC AND POLITICAL IDEOLOGY 4 69 to measures like ‘right-wing authoritarianism’ (RWA) (Duckitt and Sibley 2009), cultural 70 ‘tightness vs. looseness’ (Jackson, Gelfand, and Ember 2020), and ‘collectivism vs. 71 individualism’, predicts views on issues like same-sex marriage, abortion, and other traditional 72 or religious values – people high in RWA, for example, are also part of the political right, and 73 hold views that are more socially conservative than those low in RWA (Cizmar et al. 2014; 74 Duckitt et al. 2010; Duriez and Van Hiel 2002; Passini 2020). 75 Claessens et al. (2020) argue these dimensions can be understood as the product of two basic 76 tensions inherent to the evolution of human group living (Tomasello et al. 2012). SDO and 77 related constructs concern the trade-off between co-operation for the common good versus 78 individual self-interest and competition. RWA and related constructs concern the trade-off 79 between group conformity and social control versus individual autonomy and openness to 80 change. Strategic responses to these dual challenges of group living are argued to give rise to 81 contemporary variation in political attitudes, values, and policy preferences. This variation 82 within populations is maintained by a combination of fluctuating selection on heritable 83 biological predispositions, social learning, and evolved species-typical responses to 84 environmental and social triggers – known as ‘behavioural plasticity’. The importance of each 85 of these mechanisms is supported by work in behavioural genetics showing that both 86 dimensions of ideology are partly heritable and partly socially influenced (Batrićević and 87 Littvay 2017; Hatemi et al. 2014; Kandler, Bell, and Riemann 2016; Kandler, Bleidorn, and 88 Riemann 2012; Kandler, Gottschling, and Spinath 2016; Lewis and Bates 2014; Oskarsson et 89 al. 2015), and work in political and moral psychology showing that they are differentially 90 sensitive to certain situational factors, e.g., a range of measures of conformist attitudes and 91 values (such as RWA, cultural tightness, religiosity, and social conservatism) are sensitive to 92 threat (Asbrock and Fritsche 2013; Fincher and Thornhill 2012; Gelfand et al. 2011; Henrich 93 et al. 2019; Jackson, Gelfand, and Ember 2020; Van Leeuwen et al. 2012; Murray, Schaller, COVID-19 PANDEMIC AND POLITICAL IDEOLOGY 5 94 and Suedfeld 2013; Napier et al. 2018; Oxley et al. 2008; Shaffer and Duckitt 2013; Shook, 95 Ford, and Boggs 2017; Tybur et al. 2016; Zmigrod et al. 2020). 96 These dual evolutionary foundations of political ideology provide a natural framework for 97 making predictions regarding the specific attitudes and behaviours associated with the two 98 dimensions of ideology, and their distinct socio-ecological triggers. Here, we focus our 99 predictions on variation in RWA (as an indicator of conformist/individualist preferences) and 100 SDO (as an indicator of cooperative/competitive preferences). We chose these scales because 101 they are among the most widely used two-dimensional measures of political ideology (Duckitt 102 and Sibley 2009, 2017; Johnston and Ollerenshaw 2020), they show a clear conceptual 103 mapping to the proposed dual evolutionary foundations (Claessens et al. 2020), and have been 104 shown to powerfully predict behaviour and policy preferences in other domains (Asbrock, 105 Sibley, and Duckitt 2010; Duckitt and Sibley 2016, 2017; Milojev et al. 2014; Perry and Sibley 106 2013). 107 Under the dual foundations framework, RWA can be explained as underpinned by a threat- 108 driven concern for group viability that motivates conformity, norm enforcement, and other 109 forms of social control. Consistent with this, people high (vs. low) in RWA tend to be more 110 uncertainty-averse and conformist (scoring highly on ‘Need for Closure’ and ‘Social 111 Conformity’
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