Can A Pandemic Make People More Socially Conservative? Longitudinal Evidence From COVID-19
Can A Pandemic Make People More Socially Conservative? Longitudinal Evidence From COVID-19
Can A Pandemic Make People More Socially Conservative? Longitudinal Evidence From COVID-19
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of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles, 1285 Franz Hall, Los Angeles, CA 90095,
Abstract
The first months of 2020 threw people into a period of societal turmoil and pathogen threat with
motivational processes and activating people’s behavioral immune systems, this pandemic may
have changed social and political attitudes. The current research specifically asked the following
question: As COVID-19 became pronounced in the United States during March-April 2020, did
people living there become more socially conservative? We present a longitudinal study (N =
695) that assessed political ideology, gender role conformity, and gender stereotypes among U.S.
adults before (two months preceding) versus during the pandemic. During the pandemic,
participants reported conforming more strongly to traditional gender roles and believing more
strongly in traditional gender stereotypes than they did before the pandemic. Political ideology
remained constant from before to during the pandemic. These findings suggest that a pandemic
During the first months of 2020, societies across the world became plagued by the novel
coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak, leading the World Health Organization to declare COVID-19
a pandemic on March 11 (WHO, 2020b) and the United States to declare a state of national
emergency on March 13. The prevalence of COVID-19 grew exponentially during the virus’s
first week as an official pandemic, with the number of U.S. cases rising by more than 7-fold—
from 987 to 7,100 (WHO, 2020a)—from March 11-18. As individuals experienced everyday life
during a time of societal turmoil and pathogen threat, their psychological defense mechanisms
and motivational systems may have been put on guard, informing the way they felt about social,
moral, and political matters. In the current paper, specifically, we focus on the following
question: Could the COVID-19 pandemic have made people more socially conservative?
Endorsing socially conservative over liberal ideology reflects a general preference for
stability and traditional values over change and progressive values (Jost, Federico, & Napier,
2009). Yet conservatism is not simply a fixed individual differences variable but rather is
response to existential threat, system justification, and uncertainty (Jost, Glaser, Kruglanski, &
Sulloway, 2003). Early theorizing by Wilson (1973) suggests that adopting a conservative
ideology may enable individuals to manage feelings of threat and anxiety that environmental
uncertainty evokes. Likewise, system justification theory suggests that people can readily
become ideologically motivated to defend existing social systems in the face of threat,
instability, and change (Jost, Banaji, & Nosek, 2004). In essence, threatening circumstances can
COVID-19 PANDEMIC CONSERVATISM 4
promote conservatism by motivating a need for structure and prompting people to resist social
In times of threat, people can embrace traditional ideologies to cultivate meaning and
purpose (Jost et al., 2003). Environmental uncertainty, that is, can promote desires to preserve
the status quo. This effect is observed historically in U.S. presidential elections, throughout
which times of greater societal threat to the established order have predicted increases in
preferences for political conservativism (McCann, 1997). Specific evidence for Jost and
colleagues’ (2003) motivated social cognition model of conservatism also comes from findings
that people in the U.S. reported more conservative attitudes after the terrorist attacks of 9/11/01
than before, regardless of whether they personally self-identified as liberal versus conservative
(Nail & McGregor, 2009). Similarly, increased salience of the Ebola epidemic in 2014 predicted
preferences for more conservative political candidates (Beall, Hofer, & Schaller, 2016).
uncertainty, fear of death, instability of social systems, and the potential to evoke disgust (Jost et
al., 2003). This last element—disgust—presents a notable element intertwined with the COVID-
19 pandemic, setting it apart psychologically from many other types of disaster. Unlike the
turmoil that results from a natural disaster (e.g., hurricane, earthquake, flood) or a terrorist attack,
a pandemic carries with it a ubiquitous sense of pathogen threat. Individuals during the COVID-
19 pandemic faced not only instability and uncertainty of social order but also threat of
contracting the COVID-19 virus from their surrounding social and physical environments. Thus,
this pandemic presented a unique scenario in which people were chronically primed with an
exponentially growing pathogen threat—a prime that likely activated disgust to motivate
pathogen avoidance.
COVID-19 PANDEMIC CONSERVATISM 5
Most directly, disgust as a basic emotion serves to keep people healthy by preventing
them from ingesting contaminants and acquiring disease (Curtis, De Barra, & Aunger, 2011;
Oaten, Stevenson, & Case, 2009; Rozin & Fallon, 1987). Yet disgust can also influence moral
and political psychology through a behavioral immune system (Schaller, 2006; Schaller & Park,
2011). Research on the behavioral immune system suggests that elevated disease risk can make
disease-avoidance, which can be done through supporting social conformity, traditional values,
ethnocentrism, and xenophobia (Murray & Schaller, 2016; Terrizzi, Shook, & McDaniel, 2013).
In this vein, a sizable sum of empirical evidence suggests that the experience of feeling disgusted
may psychologically spill over into one’s moral judgments and promote socially conservative
attitudes (Dasgupta, DeSteno, Williams, & Hunsinger, 2009; Hodson et al., 2013; Inbar, Pizarro,
& Bloom, 2012; Inbar, Pizarro, Iyer, & Haidt, 2012; Terrizzi, Shook, & Ventis, 2010). Meta-
analytic evidence, convergently, points toward a moderate link between behavioral immune
(Terrizzi et al., 2013). To avoid contracting COVID-19 during the pandemic, individuals were
likely fearful of contamination and more sensitive to experiencing disgust, which may have
The effect of purity on political ideology can even operate in the absence of feeling
disgusted; simply priming people with the idea of cleanliness (e.g., by seeing hand sanitizer or
using antiseptic hand wipes) can make them more conservative (Helzer & Pizarro, 2011).
Accordingly, the pathogen threat posed by the COVID-19 pandemic was a probable stimulus of
conservatism even among individuals who themselves did not feel disgusted during the
pandemic. Given that hygiene maintenance (namely, handwashing) was widely promoted during
COVID-19 PANDEMIC CONSERVATISM 6
the pandemic, the chronically elevated salience of bodily purity may alone have sufficed to drive
roles, or the extent to which individuals identify with and endorse traditional masculinity versus
femininity (Kachel, Steffens, & Niedlich, 2016). In light of the motivated social cognition model
of conservatism (Jost et al., 2003) and the behavioral immune system (Schaller, 2006; Schaller &
Park, 2011), there is reason to suspect that the COVID-19 pandemic promoted preferences for
traditional gender roles. Conservative ideology entails preference for maintaining preexisting
social norms (Jost et al., 2003), and greater pathogen risk is associated with greater social
conformity and lower tolerance for nonconformity (Murray & Schaller, 2012; Murray, Trudeau,
& Schaller, 2011). Enacting gender typicality and legitimizing one’s gender identity demand
conforming to prescriptive norms (Goffman, 1976; Vandello, Bosson, Cohen, Burnaford, &
Weaver, 2008; West & Zimmerman, 1987) and thus may have been prompted by the pathogen
threat of COVID-19.
In addition to effects of pathogen threat through the behavioral immune system, the
roles through mortality salience anxiety and uncertainty avoidance, two motivations underlying
conservatism (Jost et al., 2003). When threats to social order involve fear of death, they may be
Pyszczynski, & Solomon, 1986) approach to motivated conservatism suggests that adhering to
established belief systems and identities can enable individuals to achieve existential security
(Jost et al., 2009). Given that COVID-19 boasted an impressive death toll (WHO, 2020a), its
COVID-19 PANDEMIC CONSERVATISM 7
pandemic likely primed mortality salience and stimulated defense mechanisms that promote
for traditional gender role conformity through not only mortality salience mechanisms, but also
in domains such as morality and gender roles (Frenkel-Brunswik, 1948; Furnham & Ribchester,
1995), which may enhance perceptions that men ought to be traditionally masculine (e.g.,
powerful, brave) and women ought to be traditionally feminine (e.g., cleanly, pristine). Given
that motivations underlying conservatism may be heightened during a time of uncertainty (Jost et
al., 2003), the COVID-19 pandemic may have lowered individuals’ thresholds for gender
ambiguity tolerance, leading to greater preference for traditionally dichotomous gender roles.
Valuing compliance with gender binary norms may have helped enable individuals to maintain a
attitudes longitudinally during an ongoing natural disaster. Most proximal to the current research
are two previous studies that examined attitudes during the Ebola epidemic of 2014. Beall and
colleagues (2016) examined voting intentions preceding the 2014 U.S. federal elections by
tracking changes in polling results, finding strong evidence that nationwide support for
conservative candidates increased after the initial U.S. Ebola outbreak. Inbar, Westgate, Pizarro,
and Nosek (2016) examined attitudes toward gay men and lesbians by tracking changes in data
Findings of this study were inconsistent and of very small effect, providing suggestive evidence
that the Ebola epidemic slightly increased implicit, but not explicit, bias against gay people.
COVID-19 PANDEMIC CONSERVATISM 8
The current research on the COVID-19 pandemic can advance this limited body of
evidence in three main ways. First, our research was longitudinal, comparing data from the same
participants at different time points. This within-person design provides a more controlled test of
attitude change and facilitates theoretically valuable moderation analyses. Second, we tested
markers of conservatism beyond voting intentions and sexual attitudes, focusing on self-
identified political ideology and beliefs about gender roles. Third, given that COVID-19 cases
were exponentially more prevalent in the U.S. than were Ebola cases, the COVID-19 pandemic
may provide a stronger naturalistic manipulation. As such, our research can complement that of
Beall and colleagues (2016) and Inbar and colleagues (2016) in order to cultivate a more
advanced empirical account of how a pathogen threat may affect social and political attitudes.
Hypotheses
pandemic, participants would report more conservative political ideology, higher gender role
conformity, and stronger gender stereotypes. We hypothesized that these effects would be
moderated by the extent to which participants were concerned about the pandemic, being larger
for participants who are high in concern than for participants who are low in concern.
uncertainty may cause people to identify with their current social groups more strongly (Hogg,
2007), and it is possible that threatening circumstances strengthen people’s commitment to their
meaning-making and defense against existential threat (Jost et al., 2003). Thus, while we
preregistration plan, we also considered the alternative possibility that instead of making people
COVID-19 PANDEMIC CONSERVATISM 9
more in favor of conservativism, a pandemic may instead make people more in favor of their
preexisting ideology. In this sense, it is plausible that the COVID-19 pandemic could simply
increase political polarization, making liberals more liberal and conservatives more conservative.
To test this account through post hoc analyses, we conceptualized baseline pre-pandemic
political ideology as a moderator of all hypothesized effects. We note that we decided upon these
analyses to test for a political polarization account shortly after we initiated wave 2 data
collection (but before looking at any of the data) and thus were unable to include these analyses
in our preregistration plan. In order to survey participants during the emergence of the COVID-
19 pandemic in real-time, we needed to initiate data collection rapidly by developing our study,
preregistration, and obtaining IRB ethical approval during a short window of time.
Method
In the current research, we tracked changes in U.S. adults’ social and political attitudes
longitudinally in order to test whether the COVID-19 pandemic made individuals more socially
conservative. We present data comparing individuals’ attitudes during the emergence of the
pandemic in the U.S. (wave 2) to their attitudes before the pandemic (wave 1). Wave 1 was
conducted in late January 2020, and wave 2 during a 2-week interval from March 19, 2020,
through April 2, 2020, in order to survey participants during the weeks immediately following
the declarations of COVID-19 as a pandemic and of the U.S. into a state of national emergency.
During the time of wave 2 data collection, the U.S. experienced a rapid growth in COVID-19
diagnoses, rising by more than 20-fold from 10,400 to 213,600 (WHO 2020a). Accordingly, this
window of time was one during which the pandemic was actively emerging and spreading
throughout all parts of the country, enhancing the internal validity of the current research.
This study’s hypotheses and analyses were preregistered via the Open Science
Framework (OSF), along with plans for the sample size and materials of wave 2 data collection
Of course, given that we could not have predicted the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic
two months prior in January at the time of wave 1 data collection, this preregistration plan
pertains to wave 2 data collection and our intentions for the longitudinal analysis of these two
Participants
A total of 2,000 U.S. adult participants, recruited via Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk),
completed an initial baseline survey in late January 2020. During the March 19, 2020, through
April 2, 2020, interval, 749 of these initial 2,000 participants completed the follow-up survey on
MTurk. Wave 1 data for the current research were collected conveniently shortly before the
COVID-19 pandemic. We note that, as the current research was not intended to be longitudinal
at the time of wave 1 data collection, participants were not initially expecting a follow-up survey,
which likely increased our study’s attrition rate. Notably, no effects of attrition bias emerged:
Participants who completed the follow-up survey did not differ significantly from participants
who did not complete the follow-up survey, in terms of any of our three outcomes (assessed at
Fifty-four participants were excluded from analyses for failing an attention check in
either or both of the surveys, leaving 695 participants (54% women) in the final sample.
Participants were between the ages of 18 and 88 (Mage = 42.77, SD = 13.61). This sample
Materials
Political ideology. Political ideology was assessed by the question, “On the following
scale from 1 (very liberal) to 7 (very conservative), how would you rate your political views?”
Gender role conformity. Conformity to traditional gender roles was assessed by Kachel
and colleagues’ (2016) traditional masculinity/femininity scale (6 items; α = .92 at both time
points). Example items were, “I consider myself as…” and “Ideally, I would like to be…” with
responses to all items ranging from 1 (very feminine) to 7 (very masculine). This variable was
reverse-scored for women so that higher scores reflected greater conformity to one’s own gender
roles for all participants (i.e., higher femininity for women, higher masculinity for men).
assessed by 8 items (time 1 α = .89, time 2 α = .92). Of these 8 items, 4 items assessed attitudes
toward men (time 1 α = .93, time 2 α = .91) and 4 items assessed attitudes toward women (α =
.96 at both time points), which were additionally used to compute distinct men and women
stereotype subscales for post hoc analyses. For attitudes toward men, the scale led with the
prompt, “Compared to women, men are expected to be more…” and followed with the following
items: “risk-taking,” “brave,” “courageous,” and “adventurous.” For attitudes toward women, the
scale led with the prompt, “Compared to men, women are expected to be more…” and followed
with the following items: “clean,” “hygienic,” “sanitary,” and “pristine.” Responses to all items
question, “How concerned are you about the health risks posed by the coronavirus pandemic?”
with responses including “not at all,” “somewhat concerned,” “very concerned,” and “extremely
concerned.” Participants who indicated that they were either “not at all” or “somewhat
COVID-19 PANDEMIC CONSERVATISM 12
concerned” were categorized as low in concern, whereas participants who indicated that they
were either “very concerned” or “extremely concerned” were categorized as high in concern.
Procedure
This longitudinal study involved two waves. First, participants completed an initial
survey in late January 2020. Second, participants completed a follow-up survey between March
19, 2020, and April 2, 2020. In both surveys, participants completed the measures of political
ideology, gender role conformity, and endorsement of gender stereotypes in the same order. In
the follow-up survey, participants completed the COVID-19 concern measure at the end of the
survey, in order to avoid completion of this measure biasing participants’ responses to the
political ideology and gender role measures. This study protocol received Institutional Review
Board approval, and informed consent was obtained from all study participants.
Results
https://osf.io/pufdv/?view_only=872e4e685e8749bebfbdb099deaac7ac.
Political ideology.
Preregistered analyses. Political ideology during the pandemic (M = 3.53, SD = 1.80) did
not differ significantly from political ideology before the pandemic (M = 3.51, SD = 1.76), t(694)
= 0.66, p = .508, d = 0.02. Change in political ideology from before to during the pandemic did
not differ significantly by participants’ level of pandemic concern, F(1, 693) = 0.06, p = .813.
during the pandemic did not differ significantly by participants’ baseline political ideology, F(6,
the pandemic was invariant across age, F(59, 635) = 1.03, p = .425, gender, F(1, 691) = 1.63, p =
.202, income, F(5, 689) = 0.40, p = .851, and educational attainment, F(5, 689) = 1.59, p = .161.
gender roles during the pandemic (M = 5.39, SD = 1.02) than before the pandemic (M = 5.31, SD
= 0.99), t(692) = 3.28, p = .001, d = 0.12. Change in gender role conformity from before to
during the pandemic did not differ significantly by participants’ level of pandemic concern, F(1,
Moderation by baseline political ideology. Change in gender role conformity from before
to during the pandemic did not differ significantly by participants’ baseline political ideology,
during the pandemic was invariant across age, F(59, 633) = 1.19, p = .167, gender, F(1, 691) =
0.23, p = .633, income, F(5, 687) = 0.32, p = .904, and educational attainment, F(5, 687) = 0.34,
p = .891.
more strongly during the pandemic (M = 5.57, SD = 1.03) than before the pandemic (M = 5.46,
SD = 1.01), t(694) = 2.84, p = .005, d = 0.11. Change in endorsement of gender stereotypes from
before to during the pandemic did not differ significantly by participants’ level of pandemic
from before to during the pandemic did not differ significantly by participants’ baseline political
before to during the pandemic was invariant across age, F(59, 635) = 1.30, p = .071, gender, F(1,
691) = 2.59, p = .108, income, F(5, 689) = 0.10, p = .992, and educational attainment, F(5, 689)
= 1.29, p = .268.
analyses focusing on gender stereotypes overall (with stereotypes of men and women combined),
we also tested for changes in stereotypes of men and women distinctly. Participants reported
endorsing traditional gender stereotypes of men of more strongly during the pandemic (M = 5.60,
SD = 1.07) than before the pandemic (M = 5.49, SD = 1.17), t(694) = 2.34, p = .018, d = 0.09.
Likewise, participants reported endorsing traditional gender stereotypes of women more strongly
during the pandemic (M = 5.54, SD = 1.30) than before the pandemic (M = 5.43, SD = 1.30),
Discussion
their conformity to traditional gender roles and endorsements of traditional gender stereotypes.
These effects did not vary depending on how health-concerned participants were about the
pandemic, nor did they vary by participants’ baseline political ideology or any other
demographic. Moreover, effects were invariant across both participant gender and target gender:
Not only did men identify more strongly with masculinity and women more strongly with
COVID-19 PANDEMIC CONSERVATISM 15
femininity, but also both men and women participants endorsed more traditional gender
stereotypes of both men and women. Political ideology remained constant from before to during
the pandemic. No support emerged for a political polarization account of the pandemic’s effects.
These findings provide novel insights into moral and political psychology, offering
relevance for theory and practice. First, they highlight gender role beliefs as a domain sensitive
to pathogen threat, in line with a behavioral immune system account (Schaller, 2006; Schaller &
Park, 2011) and related empirical evidence highlighting a positive link between pathogen risk
and social conformity (Murray & Schaller, 2012; Murray, Trudeau, & Schaller, 2011). The
possibility that a pandemic’s psychological effects could spill over into conservative attitudes
toward gender roles is theoretically intriguing, given that gender roles were not directly
intertwined with the COVID-19 pandemic itself. Other manifestations of conservatism, such as
xenophobia, have direct relevance for responses to COVID-19 and could be explained by
perceptions of COVID-19’s origin or intentions to avoid promoting the spread of—and thus
exposure to—the virus across countries. The observed effect for gender roles, accordingly, may
reflect subtle workings of the behavioral immune system and motivated conservatism, given that
one would not predict any changes in gender role beliefs in the absence of these theories’
purviews.
Beyond theoretical implications, the notion that the COVID-19 pandemic increased
preference for traditional gender roles should be considered in light of the 2020 U.S. presidential
election. For example, a potential implication of our findings is that public opinion—among both
liberals and conservatives—may have shifted slightly to prefer candidates and media outlets who
uphold traditional gender binary roles through dialogue and policy. Based on previous research
(Frenkel-Brunswik, 1948; Furnham & Ribchester, 1995; Jost et al., 2003; Jost et al., 2009;
COVID-19 PANDEMIC CONSERVATISM 16
Makwana et al., 2018), we theorize that participants expressed preference for traditional gender
roles as a means of achieving existential security and reducing uncertainty and ambiguity
through essentialist, rigid, categorically dichotomized reasoning. The priming of these cognitions
through political discussions may have the potential to induce small preferences toward socially
Although our data revealed statistically significant support for predictions of the
behavioral immune system (Schaller, 2006; Schaller & Park, 2011) and motivated social
cognition model of conservatism (Jost et al., 2003), they concurrently highlight potential
boundary conditions of these theories. Contrary to our hypothesis, participants did not self-
identify as more politically conservative upon the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic. A
attitudes (such as gender), but not global political ideology; further research looking beyond
gender would be needed to test this perspective. Our significant hypothesized effects for gender
role beliefs, moreover, were small. These findings add to a very limited body of evidence (e.g.,
Beall et al., 2016; Inbar et al., 2016) on the effects of a naturally occurring pathogen threat on
social and political attitudes, highlighting potential boundary conditions (regarding effect size) of
people’s retrospective self-report after the pandemic has concluded or their prospective
preregistration and its high statistical power. One limitation is that findings are generalizability
only within the U.S. A second limitation is that our data cannot foster attribution of effects
COVID-19 PANDEMIC CONSERVATISM 17
specifically to either behavioral immune system theorizing or the motivated social cognition
theories to predict and explain real-world phenomena, as exemplified by our research. The
current study’s high ecological validity to permit this application, however, comes at the cost of
internal validity, in that the specific psychological mechanisms by which the COVID-19
pandemic could have affected gender role beliefs remain unclear. By demonstrating effects using
a rare naturalistic manipulation, this research can couple with more controlled studies that pit
Ultimately, these findings highlight that the COVID-19 pandemic coincided with
increased preferences for traditional gender roles. In this vein, when it comes to men being
masculine and women being feminine, a pandemic may indeed make people more socially
conservative.
COVID-19 PANDEMIC CONSERVATISM 18
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