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Can a pandemic make people more socially conservative? Political ideology, gender roles, and the case of COVID‐19
Author(s) -
Rosenfeld Daniel L.,
Tomiyama A. Janet
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
journal of applied social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.822
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1559-1816
pISSN - 0021-9029
DOI - 10.1111/jasp.12745
Subject(s) - ideology , pandemic , politics , conformity , covid-19 , social psychology , psychology , social distance , existentialism , political science , sociology , medicine , law , disease , pathology , infectious disease (medical specialty)
The first months of 2020 rapidly threw people into a period of societal turmoil and pathogen threat with the COVID‐19 pandemic. By promoting epistemic and existential motivational processes and activating people's behavioral immune systems, this pandemic may have changed social and political attitudes. The current research specifically asked the following question: As COVID‐19 became pronounced in the United States during the pandemic's emergence, did people living there become more socially conservative? We present a repeated‐measures study ( N = 695) that assessed political ideology, gender role conformity, and gender stereotypes among U.S. adults before (January 25–26, 2020) versus during (March 19–April 2, 2020) the pandemic. During the pandemic, participants reported conforming more strongly to traditional gender roles and believing more strongly in traditional gender stereotypes than they did before the pandemic. Political ideology remained constant over time. These findings suggest that a pandemic may promote the preference for traditional gender roles.