Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/262306 
Year of Publication: 
2022
Series/Report no.: 
Discussion Papers of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods No. 2022/1
Publisher: 
Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods, Bonn
Abstract: 
We investigate the relationship between political attitudes and prosociality in a survey of a representative sample of the U.S. population during the first summer of the COVID-19 pandemic. We find that an experimental measure of prosociality correlates positively with adherence to protective behaviors. Liberal political ideology predicts higher levels of protective behavior than conservative ideology, independently of the differences in prosociality across the two groups. Differences between liberals and conservatives are up to 4.4 times smaller in their behavior than in judging the government's crisis management. This result suggests that U.S. Americans are more polarized on ideological than behavioral grounds.
Subjects: 
Polarization
Ideology
Trust in politicians
COVID-19
Prosociality
Health behavior
Worries
JEL: 
D01
D72
D91
I12
I18
H11
H12
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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