Can Policy Responses to Pandemics Reduce Mass Fear?

IF 3.2 Q1 POLITICAL SCIENCE

Journal of Experimental Political Science Pub Date : 2022-04-21 DOI:10.1017/XPS.2022.7

Michael M. Bechtel, William O’Brochta, Margit Tavits

引用次数: 1

Abstract

Abstract To successfully address large-scale public health threats such as the novel coronavirus outbreak, policymakers need to limit feelings of fear that threaten social order and political stability. We study how policy responses to an infectious disease affect mass fear using data from a survey experiment conducted on a representative sample of the adult population in the USA (N = 5,461). We find that fear is affected strongly by the final policy outcome, mildly by the severity of the initial outbreak, and minimally by policy response type and rapidity. These results hold across alternative measures of fear and various subgroups of individuals regardless of their level of exposure to coronavirus, knowledge of the virus, and several other theoretically relevant characteristics. Remarkably, despite accumulating evidence of intense partisan conflict over pandemic-related attitudes and behaviors, we show that effective government policy reduces fear among Democrats, Republicans, and Independents alike.

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应对大流行病的政策能减少大众恐惧吗？

摘要为了成功应对新型冠状病毒疫情等大规模公共卫生威胁，政策制定者需要限制威胁社会秩序和政治稳定的恐惧感。我们使用对美国成年人口代表性样本（N=5461）进行的调查实验数据，研究了对传染病的政策反应如何影响群体恐惧。我们发现，恐惧在很大程度上受到最终政策结果的影响，轻微地受到最初疫情的严重性的影响，最小程度上受到政策反应类型和速度的影响。这些结果适用于恐惧的替代测量方法和不同的个体亚组，无论他们接触冠状病毒的程度、对病毒的了解程度以及其他几个理论上相关的特征如何。值得注意的是，尽管有越来越多的证据表明，在与疫情相关的态度和行为上存在激烈的党派冲突，但我们表明，有效的政府政策可以减少民主党、共和党和无党派人士的恐惧。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Journal of Experimental Political Science Social Sciences-Sociology and Political Science

CiteScore

5.10

自引率

8.30%

发文量

期刊介绍： The Journal of Experimental Political Science (JEPS) features cutting-edge research that utilizes experimental methods or experimental reasoning based on naturally occurring data. We define experimental methods broadly: research featuring random (or quasi-random) assignment of subjects to different treatments in an effort to isolate causal relationships in the sphere of politics. JEPS embraces all of the different types of experiments carried out as part of political science research, including survey experiments, laboratory experiments, field experiments, lab experiments in the field, natural and neurological experiments. We invite authors to submit concise articles (around 4000 words or fewer) that immediately address the subject of the research. We do not require lengthy explanations regarding and justifications of the experimental method. Nor do we expect extensive literature reviews of pros and cons of the methodological approaches involved in the experiment unless the goal of the article is to explore these methodological issues. We expect readers to be familiar with experimental methods and therefore to not need pages of literature reviews to be convinced that experimental methods are a legitimate methodological approach. We will consider longer articles in rare, but appropriate cases, as in the following examples: when a new experimental method or approach is being introduced and discussed or when novel theoretical results are being evaluated through experimentation. Finally, we strongly encourage authors to submit manuscripts that showcase informative null findings or inconsistent results from well-designed, executed, and analyzed experiments.