The Fears of Being Infected by the COVID–19 Virus in Canada: A Look at Germophobes, Crowd-averse, Fearless and Other Population Segments

Mata, Fernando. 2020. “The Fears of Being Infected by the COVID–19 Virus in Canada: A Look at Germophobes, Crowd-averse, Fearless and Other Population Segments.” SocArXiv. November 4. doi:10.31235/osf.io/b38vs

Abstract: The fear of being infected by the COVID-19 virus is widespread in the Canadian population. This study examined the COVID-19 virus infection fears in a survey sample of 4,200 adult Canadians aged 15 years old and over during the confinement period of June 21-26, 2020 and collected by Statistics Canada. A marketing segmentation analysis was carried out using a roster of 13 perceived health risks items leading to the identification of typical fears and the profiling of five major segments present in the Canadian adult population: "Germophobes" (7%), "Crowd-Averse" (34%), "Fearless" (17%), "Outside "Bubble"-Averse" (18%), and ""Nursing Homes-Averse" (24%). Health risk items included a wide range of preoccupations such as visiting retirement homes, travelling by car or airplane, attending public events, shopping, eating out, seeing doctors and/or participating in sports or gyms. The five population segments were identified using a combination of principal component and k-means cluster statistical analysis. Marketing segmentation is a useful tool for decision makers to categorize population members and, by doing so, facilitate better public campaigns, help design messages, and implement changes that can promote more efficient ways to deal with the various societal consequences of the COVID-19 confinement.

Partisans are less altruistic, less trusting, & less likely to contribute to a mutually beneficial public good when paired with the other party's members, bordering on entrenched divisions commonly saw in conflict or post-conflict societies

Tribalism in America: Behavioral Experiments on Affective Polarization in the Trump Era. Sam Whitt et al. Journal of Experimental Political Science, November 2020. https://doi.org/10.1017/XPS.2020.29

Rolf Degen's take: https://twitter.com/DegenRolf/status/1323938691383988224

Abstract: Our research speaks to the ongoing debate over the extent and severity of partisan political divisions in American society. We employ behavioral experiments to probe for affective polarization using dictator, trust, and public goods games with party identification treatments. We find that subjects who identify politically with the Democratic or Republican Party and ideologically as liberals and conservatives display stronger affective biases than politically unaffiliated and ideological moderates. Partisan subjects are less altruistic, less trusting, and less likely to contribute to a mutually beneficial public good when paired with members of the opposing party. Compared to other behavioral studies, our research suggests increasing levels of affective polarization in the way Americans relate to one another politically, bordering on the entrenched divisions one commonly sees in conflict or post-conflict societies. To overcome affective polarization, our research points to inter-group contact as a mechanism for increasing trust and bridging political divides.