“When in Danger, Turn Right: Covid-19 Threat Promotes Social Conservatism and Right-wing Presidential Candidates

Karwowski, Maciej, Marta Kowal, Agata Groyecka, Michal Bialek, Izabela Lebuda, Agnieszka Sorokowska, and Piotr Sorokowski. 2020. “When in Danger, Turn Right: Covid-19 Threat Promotes Social Conservatism and Right-wing Presidential Candidates.” PsyArXiv. March 31. doi:10.31234/osf.io/pjfhs

Abstract: The recent coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic forms an enormous challenge for the world's economy, governments, and societies. Drawing upon the Parasite Model of Democratization (Thornhill, R., Fincher, C. L., & Aran, D. (2009), parasites, democratization, and the liberalization of values across contemporary countries, Biological Reviews, 84(1), 113-131) across two large, preregistered experiments conducted in the USA and Poland (total N = 1,237), we examined the psychological and political consequences of this unprecedented pandemic. By manipulating saliency of COVID-19, we demonstrate that activating thinking about coronavirus elevates Americans' and Poles' anxiety and indirectly promotes their social conservatism as well as support for more conservative presidential candidates. The pattern obtained was consistent in both countries and it implies that the pandemic may result in a shift in political views. Both theoretical and practical consequences of the findings are discussed.

Discussion
In a large-scale, preregistered experiment, we found evidence for a shift in political views of individuals threatened by the coronavirus pandemic. Specifically, we show that those who feel threatened react with anxiety, tend to seek greater structure in their environment, and thus shift toward social conservatism. All of this increases the support for conservative presidential candidates. A great value of our research is the observed similarity of this effect in two countries: Poland and United States. Different in many aspects, these populations still exhibited the same pattern of results. Further, our findings cohere with political ideology shifts following terrorist attacks (38). Hence, the results suggest a universal character of the threat-to-conservatism path.

Our results have crucial, practical implications, since they suggest that forthcoming elections can be biased toward right-wing, conservative candidates. People simply seek stability and order, which seem to be more pronouncedly exhibited by conservative candidates. Our findings also have important theoretical implications, as the current pandemic created a unique opportunity to validate the Parasite Model of Democratization (14). We found strong support for it – pathogen threat boosted preference of values typical for social conservatism. We also provided evidence against an alternative explanation of threat boosting support for status quo, because support was also greater for less liberal (or more centrist) counter-candidates, if participants were to choose among them.

Regarding applicability of our findings, we believe that all candidates should reframe their political communication. In the moral foundation theory (39, 40), loyalty and authority constitute the so-called binding values. These moral values are more prominent in conservatives but are not ignored by liberally oriented individuals either. Hence, communication appealing to these values may be an efficient way to mitigate the shift of values in societies: they are accepted by the core supporters of liberal candidates and are actively sought by individuals affected by the coronavirus threat. In general, our results highlight how important it is for people to perceive the world as a stable and predictable place. This preference is even stronger in times of chaos. Those interested in human behavior should consider its importance in the current models explaining how we judge and think.