Whistling Through the COVID-19 Pandemic: Optimism Bias and Political Beliefs in the United States

• Author: Amy Wolaver,John Doces
• Date: 01 May 2022
• Published date: 01 May 2022
• DOI: 10.1177/1532673X211055043
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

American Politics Research

2022, Vol. 50(3) 396–415

© The Author(s) 2022

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DOI: 10.1177/1532673X211055043

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Whistling Through the COVID-19 Pandemic:

Optimism Bias and Political Beliefs in the

United States

Amy Wolaver

1

and John Doces

2

Abstract

Utilizing a nationally representative survey of Americans from December 2020, we consider the degree to which COVID-19

risk perceptions are related to political factors. We examine the likelihood that one believes they wi ll be infected with COVID-

19, the likelihood that a peer will be infected, and the difference between the indivi dual and peer perceived risks, known as

optimism bias, and compare these perceptions across partisan characteristics. Results show that Trump voting category is the

most important contributor to perceived COVID-19 risks. We find similar partisan differences as prior research, note that

these differences persisted through the end of 2020, despite the post-Thanksgiving surge with highand growing rates of COVID

in all regions of the United States. Contrary to prior expectations, partisanship does not strongly predict the level of optimism

bias, as both assessed personal and general health risks track closely with one another by both political party and ideology.

Keywords

COVID-19, optimism bias, risk perception, partisanship

Introduction

Public health experts opined from the outset of the COVID-

19 pandemic that optimism bias, the view that one’s personal

risk of an adverse event is lower than others’risks, would

impede efforts to contain the outbreak (Bottemanne et al.,

2020). This concern is grounded in evidence; optimism bias

has been correlated with more risky behaviors in an epidemic

context (Fragkaki et al., 2020). In the context of the current

pandemic, political orientation is another factor correlated

with health. A growing literature has linked political ideology

and party affiliation to the uptake of preventive measures

(Allcott et al., 2020;Andersen, 2020;Barrios & Hochberg,

2020;Clinton et al., 2021;Fan et al., 2020;Gadarian et al.,

2020;Gollwitzer et al., 2020;Grossman et al., 2020), with

conservatives consistently being less likely than liberals to

engage in social distancing, mask wearing, and other such

behaviors. These effects are largely robust to the local se-

verity of the epidemic, demographic, and policy differences.

In light of these observations linking both political factors and

optimism bias to different behavioral responses, we ask

whether political orientation and optimism bias are also

linked.

Political leaders have been inconsistent in their messaging

both about the efficacy of the mitigation measures and the

risks of the virus itself. Part of the partisan divide in behaviors

is very likely due to the fact that political elites from different

parties have sent divergent messages to the public (Green

et al., 2020); then-President Donald Trump asserted that one

day the virus would just disappear while political leaders in

the Democratic party framed the risk of Covid-19 trans-

mission as very high. At the state level, Republican governors

and other leaders were mixed in their responses, with some

emphasizing the health risks and others following Trump’s

lead in downplaying them. Does elite messaging from po-

litical leaders affect optimism bias? Moreover, given the

divergence between national and state Republican leaders’

messaging, do conservatives and/or Republicans have higher

perceived COVID risks in states with Republican governors

who sent strong public health messages?

We employ an indirect measure of optimism bias by

comparing the difference between an individual’s estimate of

the risks to another person similar to themselves and their

own level of risk. Using this indirect measure allows us to

also examine the individual components of optimism bias,

that is, general versus personal risk perceptions, separately.

1

Department of Economics, Bucknell University, Lewisburg, PA, USA

2

Department of Political Science, Bucknell University, Lewisburg, PA, USA

Corresponding Author:

Amy Wolaver, Department of Economics, Bucknell University, 1 Dent Drive,

Lewisburg, PA 17837-2005, USA.

Email: awolaver@bucknell.edu

Some levels of optimism bias may be rational; to the extent

that an individual can control the risk to himself/herself better

than others can control their risks, the optimism may reflect

true differences in risks.

This paper makes several contributions to our under-

standing of beliefs about the possibility of COVID-19 in-

fection and its derived parts. A primary contribution is

examining the political factors that shape risk perceptions and

optimism bias. Determining whether there are partisan dif-

ferences in levels of optimism bias could have important

implications for public health messaging as the pandemic

continues, especially in crafting messages to encourage

vaccinations. An additional contribution of this study is that

we extend the analysis further in time from previous studies,

as our surveys were fielded in the first week of December

2020 whereas others have been fielded prior to this date. The

timing is important because it coincides with the post-

Thanksgiving, nationwide surge in cases which were not

limited to specific regions. Finally, we compare different

measures of partisanship, ideology, and support for Trump

and their effects on assessed risks and levels of optimism bias.

Our findings show that political factors affect perceptions

about one’s own risk and the population risk, but only affect

average levels of optimism bias when political differences are

measured by Trump voter status. We find that Democrats rate

both their personal risk and the population risks higher than

Republicans; however, these differences are not robust to the

inclusion of controls for voting for Trump. Voting for Trump

in 2016, but not in 2020 (Trump Defectors), is associated with

higher estimated risks to both themselves and similar persons.

Thus, Trump trumps party when it comes to self-assessed risk

of COVID-19.

Unexpectedly, however, we do not find robust effects due

to political party or ideology on optimism bias: Democrats/

liberals and Republicans/conservatives have similar levels of

optimism bias, on average. There are some interesting effects

of Trump voting status on optimism bias. Trump Defectors

have both the lowest level of optimism bias and the highest

rated risks to both themselves and to the general population.

In what follows, we discuss the literature, provide the primary

hypotheses we test in this analysis, discuss the data and

results, and conclude with a short discussion of these

findings.

Literature Review

Evidence of Partisan Divergence in COVID Risk Views

and Behaviors

The nascent literature on partisanship and COVID-19 be-

havioral responses in the United States is just beginning to

theorize and empirically test the mechanisms through which

political identity affects behavioral responses. Certainly, the

messaging from political leaders at the national level has

differed by party, with Trump generally downplaying the

pandemic, delivering inconsistent messaging about public

health measures, and disregarding public health recom-

mendations in his own behaviors (Beauchamp, 2020;

Coppins, 2020;McCarthy, 2020;Stanley-Becker & Janes,

2020). At the state level, Democratic governors have con-

sistently sent cautionary messages and implemented stay-at-

home orders and other preventive measures. While some

Republican governors have also done so, others have refused

or delayed similar messaging and policies (Grossman et al.,

2020).

With preliminary evidence indicating that there are par-

tisan differences in COVID risk perception in the United

States, we theorize that an additional, related factor may also

be important in explaining the divergent behavioral re-

sponses. Optimism bias in particular is another possible

mediating factor. As far as we have been able to determine, to

date, no one has directly tested whether political factors are

related to an individual’s level of optimism bias. Fan et al.

(2020),Allcott et al. (2020),andGadarian et al. (2020) find

that conservatives/Republicans express beliefs that COVID is

less widespread than liberals/Democrats do, with Allcott et al.

(2020) also documenting that Republicans rate their personal

chances of contracting COVID as lower than Democrats.

However, this is different than comparing one’s perception of

their individual risk relative to a peer’s risk. Pushing the

research in this direction is an important next step as personal

beliefs about risk shape behavioral responses to this and

future pandemics and to other crises.

Evidence on Risk Assessment and Optimism Bias

Humans tend to assess risk through two different pathways:

affective (emotional) and cognitive (risk as analysis); further,

our perceptions of a particular risk may shift over time as we

gain more experience with that risk (Jang et al., 2020). Jang

et al. (2020) detail these changes in risk perception and how

they relate to individuals’trust in government in South Korea

over the course of the MERS outbreak in 2015. In this

outbreak, both affective and cognitive assessments of risk

initially increased and subsequently declined over time, al-

though affective risk was reduced less than cognitive risks.

These trends lagged the actual changes in new case numbers.

In terms of partisan differences, respondents who affiliated

with the opposition party expressed more worry than re-

spondents affiliated with the ruling party. In contrast,

Cowling et al. (2010), found low rates of affective risk in

Hong Kong during the 2009 H1N1 outbreak, although re-

spondents who expressed higher levels of anxiety engaged in

more preventive behaviors.

With respect to general risk perceptions in the current

pandemic, Dryhurst et al. (2020) surveyed respondents in 10

countries across Europe, America, and Asia regarding

COVID risk perceptions. Their measure, an index combining

measures of both affective and cognitive risks, was rated

highly across all of the samples. They did not identify strong

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