Where Motivated Reasoning Withers and Looms Large: Fear and Partisan Reactions to the COVID‐19 Pandemic

2023/09/10 by Isaac D. Mehlhaff, Timothy J. Ryan, Marc J. Hetherington +2 · 18 citations
Medicine · Psychology · Social Sciences · #Anxiety #Cognitive psychology #Computer science #Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) #Disease #Economics #Electoral Systems and Political Participation #Heuristics #Law #Medicine #Motivated reasoning #Pandemic #Polarization (electrochemistry) #Political science #Politics #Populism, Right-Wing Movements #Positive economics #Psychology #Social and Intergroup Psychology #Social psychology

paper · doi:10.1111/ajps.12808

published in American Journal of Political Science 68(1), 5-23 (Wiley)

openalex publication_date 2023/09/10 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28

Abstract

Abstract Contemporary American politics has been largely characterized by hyperpartisanship and polarization, with partisan‐motivated reasoning a thematic concern. Theories of emotions in politics suggest that anxiety might interrupt partisan heuristics and encourage citizens to reason more evenhandedly—but in what domains and to what extent? We use original panel data to assess how anxiety about becoming seriously ill from COVID‐19 interacted with partisan attachments to shape political judgment during the COVID‐19 pandemic. The structure of our data allows us to assess large‐scale implications of politically relevant emotions in ways that so far have not been possible. We find large effects on policy attitudes: Republicans who were afraid of getting sick rejected signals from copartisan leaders by supporting mask mandates and the like. Effects on vote choice for Republicans were muted in comparison, but fear's large effect on independents may have been pivotal.

Citations

• Politics across Generations: Family Transmission Reexamined
• The case for motivated reasoning.
• The Economic Consequences of Partisanship in a Polarized Era
• Americans, Not Partisans: Can Priming American National Identity Reduce Affective Polarization?

Cited by

• More than a partisan pandemic: Worldview and COVID ‐19 response in the United States
• Rallying around the leader in times of crises: The opposing effects of perceived threat and anxiety
• Partisanship and the Pandemic: How and Why Americans Followed Party Cues on COVID-19

Related

• Did politically engaged individuals construe the COVID‐19 pandemic primarily as a security threat, a welfare threat, or both? Understanding differential emotional and ideological responses to threats through the lens of THEISM
• Partisanship and the Pandemic: How and Why Americans Followed Party Cues on COVID-19
• Different Politics, Different Realities? The Structure of Partisan Sensemaking About COVID-19
• Responses to political partisans are shaped by a COVID-19-sensitive disease avoidance psychology: A longitudinal investigation of functional flexibility.
• Whom We Trust, What We Fear: COVID-19 Fear and the Politics of Information