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ABSTRACT
The coronavirus pandemics represent a dramatic global health emergency; exploring its cultural impact is important. We contribute to this by investigating changes in political opinions following the pandemics (focusing on the UK and the USA; these were examined jointly given their cultural similarity). Online, participants (recruited via the Prolific website) answered (newly created) questions probing how their opinion about immigration, patriotism, and welfare policies changed following the pandemics. Also, they indicated their political orientation and level of anxiety about coronavirus. We found that political orientation influenced opinion change so that left-wing, compared to right-wing, participants reported decreased patriotism and more positive attitude towards immigration and welfare policies. Higher anxiety about coronavirus was associated with larger opinion change in all areas investigated. Finally, right-wing, compared to left-wing, participants reported lower anxiety about coronavirus. These observations suggest that political orientation and anxiety modulated the impact of the coronavirus emergency on political opinions.
Declaration of interest statement
The author declares no conflict of interest.