What is it about?
Using large-scale panel data collected during the COVID-19 pandemic (May 2020) in England, Wales, and Scotland, we examined whether perceived threat from the coronavirus would be related to intergroup attitudes toward the U.K., China, and Italy (U.K. as the in-group, and China and Italy as two out-groups connected to the pandemic as, respectively, the source and conduit of the virus). Contrary to previous studies on pathogen psychology which suggest that pathogen threat should predict negative attitudes toward out-groups, we found that COVID-19 threat was only weakly related to intergroup attitudes.
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Why is it important?
Most research in pathogen psychology has relied on laboratory studies. It is important both as a test of the theory and in terms of practical implications to consider whether the threat-attitude relationship similarly applies to individuals’ responses to the global COVID-19 pandemic.
Perspectives
These results suggest that implications from pathogen psychology might be more limited than previously thought and apply only to specific out-group members.
Fanny Lalot
Universitat Basel
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Does COVID-19 threat relate to intergroup attitudes? A test in the U.K., Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences, September 2022, American Psychological Association (APA),
DOI: 10.1037/ebs0000311.
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