Partisanship and Fear are Associated with Resistance to COVID -19 Directives (2021)

Abstract: Ideological differences have had a large impact on individual and community response to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. Early behavioral research during the pandemic showed that conservatives were less likely to adhere to health directives, which contradicts a body of work suggesting that conservative ideology emphasizes a rule abiding, loss aversion, and prevention focus. We reconcile this contradiction by analyzing semantic content of local press releases, federal press releases, and localized tweets during the first month of the government response to COVID-19 in the United States. Controlling for factors such as COVID-19 confirmed cases and deaths, local economic indicators, and more, we find that online expressions of fear in conservative areas lead to an increase in adherence to public health recommendations concerning COVID-19, and that expressions of fear in government press releases are a significant predictor of expressed fear on Twitter.

## introduction over the last decade, politics in the united states have become increasingly polarized @xcite @xcite . this phenomenon is manifest in the increasing politicization of historically non-partisan government agencies @xcite @xcite , the divide on ebola preparedness (nyhan, 2014), and most recently, reactions and responses to the covid-19 pandemic @xcite . a growing body of evidence suggests that, during the pandemic, conservatives in the united states have been less likely to restrict movement during shelter-in-place directives @xcite , less likely to engage in social distancing @xcite , and less likely to search for information about covid-19 @xcite . in addition, conservatives seem more likely to refuse to wear masks, view the pandemic as a hoax, and question or protest against health directives @xcite . though reactance to covid-19 mitigation efforts among conservatives is well documented, it may have been difficult to predict from existing theory and research. indeed, a sizeable body of literature suggests that, instead of reacting against state-suggested and mandated precautions, conservatives might instead be more inclined to comply than their liberal counterparts @xcite @xcite . indeed, in previous periods of crisis, conservatives have been more inclined to seek safety @xcite . this is associated with an increased likelihood among conservatives to respond to threats in the environment and appeals to fear @xcite @xcite . in other words, both evidence from research and reports from the media suggest that conservatives demonstrate less compliance to covid-19 directives than liberals while, at the same time, past research suggests conservatives might be more responsive if presented with an objective threat or when consumed by a sense of fear. that said, it is clear the divergent and partisan responses to mitigation efforts which have been observed to date pose a serious threat to communities in the united states @xcite . therefore, in this research we explore what might motivate conservatives to adhere to health directives. empirically, we utilize community level mobility data to understand changes (or lack thereof) in behavior, analyze millions of tweets and a set of official press releases to measure expressed fear, and seek ways in which public health and other officials might responsibly and effectively apply fear appeals to motivate behavior. analytically, we first measure fear in press releases and tweets using word embeddings and distributed dictionaries, we identify the factors most likely to contribute to expressions of fear with gradient boosted trees, identify the words most common in press releases expressing fear, and explore the associations between expressions of fear and behavior changing with random effects models. ## background and related work as stated in the previous section, recent work suggesting increased skepticism and reluctance to adhere to public health directives among conservatives @xcite @xcite @xcite is surprising. indeed, a long stream of research has found conservatives to be more rule abiding, risk averse, and prevention focused @xcite @xcite . in times of crisis, conservatives are more likely than liberals to seek safety @xcite . but given the current tug-of-war between political rhetoric and health risk @xcite @xcite some work suggests conservatives have come to rely more on political identity @xcite @xcite , which could be influenced or exacerbated by conservative officials downplaying the health risks of the coronavirus @xcite . one specific attribute commonly associated with a conservative mindset may explain why some have diminished or ignored the importance of covid-19 health directives. that attribute is fear. past research suggests that conservatives, more than liberals, display a reaction to fear in response to threats in the environment @xcite @xcite . that is, conservatives have a stronger reaction to threats and new experiences @xcite and express stronger emotional reactions to negative outcomes @xcite . such a response could be driven by a greater need for control over the environment and greater impulse to reduce uncertainty @xcite . since conservatives generally respect authority and want the hierarchical structure to remain in place, they are more fearful of change to this structure @xcite . these conflicting streams of research can be reconciled if conservatives who do experience or express fear of coronavirus are more likely to adhere to health directives as compared to conservatives who do not experience fear of coronavirus. such a pattern would not only explain the response of conservatives to covid-19 directives and recommendations but would also suggest a path forward for policy makers intent on motivating greater adherence to health directives. to explore this phenomenon, we utilize two sources of data representing community level expressions of sentiment. first, as a proxy for the attitudes of local and federal officials, we collect press releases. press releases are a common communication method used to inform a large number of citizens of a problem. similar to past public health crises, local and federal government offices and agencies have used press releases to communicate official information to the public. press releases have been used in past research as representations of the overall attitude of government agencies and officials @xcite @xcite @xcite . second, to measure the fear expressed by citizens in each community, we collect tweets related to covid-19. ## methodology in this section we first present the press release, twitter, and behavioral data sets. we then elaborate the method used to measure the degree of fear expressed in text data. finally, we outline the modeling framework for assessing the factors influencing the expression of fear, the nature of observed communications, and the impact on behavior changes in response to state directives. ## discussion past research suggests that conservatives are more likely to comply with authority @xcite @xcite and are likely to take preventative measures when they are fearful of a situation @xcite . however, a more recent stream of research argues the opposite @xcite @xcite @xcite including evidence which suggests conservative non-adherence to covid-19 health directives @xcite @xcite . we offer evidence that may help to reconcile this contradiction. the present research suggests that while conservative communities in general ignore public health guidelines, this behavior is not monolithic. instead, we see an association with the community's expressions of fear when publicly discussing the pandemic and subsequent behaviors. when conservative communities express fear of the pandemic, subsequent movement in public places decreases as compared to pre-pandemic baselines. this is not the case in majority liberal communities, who exhibit no change in behavior in association with expressed fear. moreover, we see that a dominant antecedent of local expressions of fear in conservative communities is the clear expression of fear from federal agencies and officials. importantly, increasing confirmed covid-19 case counts also predicted an increase in the expression of fear among members of majority conservative communities. this finding may be especially helpful in early phases of a pandemic when decisive action is essential. taken together, these results suggests that majority conservative communities might benefit from early regular updates from local and federal officials. because discussions of covid-19 have be-come partisan @xcite , the role of local governments cannot and should not be ignored. it is essential that official communications present details of the current situation clearly and honestly, but also that they emphasize the seriousness and severity of the pandemic @xcite . at the same time, statements that work to diminish perceptions of risk or severity of the pandemic could be a detriment to efforts to manage infection rates in communities. the implications of these results extend beyond covid-19 and help to inform policy communications at the local and federal level, specifically those targeted at majority conservative communities and for messages which may be unpopular but timely. ## conclusion we have presented an analysis of the degree of fear expressed in association with covid-19 in both official government press releases and by twitter users in the 53 most populous metropolitan areas in the united states. in doing so, we have identified key factors that influence expressions of fear among members of communities: strong expressions of fear in national communications and increasing confirmed covid-19 case counts. in addition, we have identified the words most likely to occur in both high-and low-fear official communications. finally, we have provided evidence that expressions of fear are associated with different prophylactic behaviors in conservative and liberal communities. in the latter, increased expressions of fear are not associated with behavior change. however, in the former, increased expressions of fear are associated with an overall decrease in movement and activity in public spaces. these results suggest that restricted testing and under-reporting case counts could be detrimental to safe individual behaviors and compliance with public health policy recommendations. similarly, minimizing the severity or seriousness of covid-19 poses a particular danger in majority conservative communities. moving beyond covid-19 mitigation, the present research emphasizes the importance of timely, relevant, and clear information capable of communicating the authentic seriousness of a situation, especially in majority conservative communities.