Table 1.
Study 1: why are conservatives less concerned about the coronavirus? Testing possible explanations of the conservatism➔perceived coronavirus threat relationship.
| Conservatism➔threat |
Indirect |
Indirect |
Indirect |
|---|---|---|---|
| Explanatory variable | Effect | Effect LCI | Effect UCI |
| COVID-19 experience and impacts: | |||
| Personal symptoms | 0.00 | −0.00 | 0.02 |
| Contact others with symptoms | 0.01 | −0.00 | 0.03 |
| Financial impacts | −0.02 | −0.05 | 0.01 |
| Watch COVID-related news | −0.06* | −0.12 | −0.01 |
| Total experience/impact | −0.02 | −0.07 | 0.02 |
| COVID-19 political beliefs: | |||
| Reactance to government orders | −0.11**** | −0.18 | −0.06 |
| Desire for government to restrict | −0.18**** | −0.25 | −0.11 |
| Desire for government to punish | −0.16**** | −0.23 | −0.09 |
| Government research spending | −0.08** | −0.14 | −0.03 |
| Government stimulus spending | −0.08** | −0.14 | −0.03 |
| Total political beliefs: | −0.21**** | −0.29 | −0.14 |
| COVID-19 partisan messaging: | |||
| Federal messaging trust | −0.01 | −0.04 | 0.01 |
Note: Listwise N = 279; ****p < .0001; ***p < .001; **p < .01; *p < .05; ^p < .07. Effect sizes and confidence intervals based on 5000 bootstrapped samples; p-values based on Sobel tests; all analyses control for age, biological sex assigned at birth, and population of resident city. Negative indirect effects = one + and one – effect in the indirect path (e.g., conservativism is + related to M and M is negatively related to COVID-19 threat, or conservatism is negatively related to M and M is positively related to COVID-19 threat); positive indirect effects = both effects in the indirect path are the same sign.