Public Support for COVID-19 Responses: Cultural Cognition, Risk Perception, and Emotions

ABSTRACT

As one of the biggest challenges facing mankind in recent history, the COVID-19 pandemic has had profound impact on the United States. However, government responses ranging from stay-at-home orders to temporary closing of nonessential businesses are not palatable for everyone. This study examines how cultural cognition, risk perception, and discrete emotions influence Americans’ support for COVID-19 responses. We found that compared to communitarians and egalitarians, individualists and hierarchists were less likely to support COVID-19 responses. In addition, fear and anger mediated the relationship between risk perception and public support in the opposite direction. The highlight of this study is the moderating role of cultural cognition. Specifically, individualistic worldviews significantly moderated anger’s mediation effect on the relationship between risk perception and support for COVID-19 responses.

Notes

1. Exploratory factor analysis with principal component extraction and varimax rotation shows that these four items load on one factor (Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin criterion = .79, Bartlett’s χ² = 1651.99, p < .001).

2. We binary coded race as White vs. minorities.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation, United States [NSF#2020597].