Physical activity: the relative associations with cognitive and affective risk beliefs

Prevention is political: political party affiliation predicts perceived risk and prevention behaviors for COVID-19

Background

Many US politicians have provided mixed messages about the risks posed by SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 and whether and to what extent prevention practices should be put in place to prevent transmission. This politicization of the virus and pandemic may affect individuals’ risk perceptions and willingness to take precautions. We examined how political party affiliation relates to risk perception for one’s own and other people’s likelihood of SARS-CoV-2 infection/COVID-19 illness.

Methods

We surveyed members of a nationally-representative, probability-sampling based survey panel (N = 410) to examine their risk perceptions, precautionary behaviors, and political party affiliation.

Results

The more strongly one identified as a Republican, the less risk one perceived to oneself from SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 and the less risk one perceived other people faced. Moreover, those identifying as more strongly Republican engaged in fewer preventive behaviors.

Conclusions

This differential response may affect virus transmission patterns and poses a considerable challenge for health communications efforts.

Protection Motivation and the COVID-19 Virus

The current study examined the role of the components of the Protection Motivation Theory of Health (PMT) in predicting protective health behaviors related to the COVID-19 virus. Through a snowball sampling procedure, in Wave 1 424 respondents completed a survey in March 2020. One hundred thirteen of these participants completed the same survey in Wave 2 in May 2020. Consistent with research on SARS, females and older individuals engaged in the behaviors more often than men and younger individuals. After accounting for these variables in predicting frequency of protective health behaviors, components of the PMT accounted for an additional 12% of the variance in Wave 1 and 16% in Wave 2, with perceived severity and outcome efficaciousness correlating positively with frequency. Anticipatory regret mediated the relationship between PMT and protective health behavior frequency. The results suggest that public health announcements that are tailored toward the severity of the virus and the efficacy of the health behaviors in decreasing the spread of the virus may meet with more success than those that heighten people's vulnerability to the disease.