Is the myth of left-wing authoritarianism itself a myth?

Is left-wing authoritarianism (LWA) closer to a myth or a reality? Twelve studies test the empirical existence and theoretical relevance of LWA. Study 1 reveals that both conservative and liberal Americans identify a large number of left-wing authoritarians in their lives. In Study 2, participants explicitly rate items from a recently-developed LWA measure as valid measurements of authoritarianism. Studies 3-11 show that persons who score high on this same LWA scale possess the traits associated with models of authoritarianism: LWA is positively related to threat sensitivity across multiple areas, including general ecological threats (Study 3), COVID disease threat (Study 4), Belief in a Dangerous World (Study 5), and Trump threat (Study 6). Further, high-LWA persons show more support for restrictive political correctness norms (Study 7), rate African-Americans and Jews more negatively (Studies 8-9), and show more cognitive rigidity (Studies 10 and 11). These effects hold when controlling for political ideology and when looking only within liberals, and further are similar in magnitude to comparable effects for right-wing authoritarianism. Study 12 uses the World Values Survey to provide cross-cultural evidence of Left-Wing Authoritarianism around the globe. Taken in total, this large array of triangulating evidence from 12 studies comprised of over 8,000 participants from the U.S. and over 66,000 participants world-wide strongly suggests that left-wing authoritarianism is much closer to a reality than a myth.

Why are conservatives less concerned about the coronavirus (COVID-19) than liberals? Comparing political, experiential, and partisan messaging explanations.

Given research revealing conservatives are more sensitive to disease threat, it is curious that U.S. conservatives were less concerned than liberals with the COVID-19 pandemic. Across four studies that spanned almost ten months throughout the pandemic, we evaluated three potential reasons why conservatives were less concerned: (1) Motivated Political reasons (conservatives held COVID-specific political beliefs that motivated them to reduce concern), (2) Experiential reasons (conservatives were less directly affected by the outbreak than liberals), and (3) Conservative Messaging reasons (differential exposure to/trust in partisan conservative messaging). All four studies consistently showed evidence that political (and not experiential or partisan messaging) reasons more strongly mediated conservatives' lack of concern for COVID-19. Additional analyses further suggested that while they did not serve as strong mediators, experiential factors provided a boundary condition for the conservatism➔perceived threat relationship. These data on over 3000 participants are consistent with a new model of the ideology-disease outbreak interface that can be applied to both the ongoing pandemic and future disease outbreaks.

Multiple forms of mass anxiety in coronavirus disease-2019 pandemic.

BACKGROUND: Heightened public anxiety was observed at the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic. Our study enriches scholarly understanding of this mass response by investigating both generic and pandemic-specific anxiety that explain preventive health behavior. METHODS: In our two-phase, mixed-methods study, pandemic-specific anxiety items elicited during the qualitative phase from March 2-8, 2020 were then tested in the quantitative phase from March 16-22, 2020. Eligible participants were U.S. or U.K. residents aged 18-65. RESULTS: Of the 1,400 participants, 52% met the criteria for moderate to severe anxiety. In addition to anxiety over possible personal COVID-19 infection, participants were also anxious about others' health, others' reactions (e.g., panic-buying, discrimination), societal problems (e.g., economic slowdown, healthcare system breakdown), and personal finances. The positive association between generic anxiety and hygiene practice frequency was explained by two interpersonal-oriented forms of pandemic-specific anxiety: anxiety over others' health (b = 0•0040, 95% CI: 0•0031-0•0050) and others' reactions (0•0031, 0•0021-0•0042). LIMITATIONS: The study was conducted with participants from developed countries at an early stage of the pandemic, and the results were not necessarily generalizable to developing countries or other stages of the pandemic. Also, hygiene practices was the sole behavior of interest, and the findings may differ for other behaviors. CONCLUSIONS: The new findings indicate the importance of adopting a nuanced approach that unveils the multifaceted nature of anxiety using a mixed-methods design. Individuals from COVID-19-affected regions experience pandemic-specific anxiety due to concerns related to not only personal but also interpersonal-oriented issues.