Table 3.
Study 3: 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 | 0.01 |
| Contact others with symptoms | −0.00 | −0.02 | 0.00 |
| Financial impacts | −0.01 | −0.03 | 0.00 |
| Resource impacts | −0.02 | −0.05 | 0.00 |
| Watch COVID-related news | −0.00 | −0.04 | 0.04 |
| Total experience/impact | −0.03* | −0.06 | −0.00 |
| COVID-19 political beliefs: | |||
| Reactance to government orders | −0.11**** | −0.17 | −0.07 |
| Desire for government to restrict | −0.13**** | −0.18 | −0.08 |
| Desire for government to punish | −0.06* | −0.11 | −0.01 |
| Government research spending | −0.03^ | −0.06 | −0.00 |
| Government stimulus spending | −0.07** | −0.11 | −0.03 |
| Total political beliefs: | −0.16**** | −0.21 | −0.10 |
| COVID-19 partisan messaging: | |||
| Federal messaging trust | −0.01 | −0.04 | 0.03 |
| Conservative (versus liberal) news | 0.02 | −0.05 | 0.10 |
| Trust in Trump's COVID leadership | −0.07 | −0.19 | 0.06 |
| Total messaging: | −0.01 | −0.12 | 0.10 |
Note: Listwise N = 401; for Trump Trust measure, N = 243. ****p < .0001; ***p < .001; **p < .01; *p < .05; Effect sizes and confidence intervals based on 5000 bootstrapped samples; all analyses control for age, biological sex assigned at birth, education level, income Level, 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.