Are Face Masks a Partisan Issue During the COVID-19 Pandemic? Differentiating Political Ideology and Political Party Affiliation

Overview

Journal Int J Psychol

Publisher Wiley

Specialty Psychology

Date 2021 Sep 21

PMID 34545946

Citations 17

Authors

Matt C Howard

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Popular press articles have asserted that those with certain political orientations are less likely to wear face masks during the COVID-19 pandemic. We propose that this relation is due to differential information shared by political parties rather than values associated with face mask wearing. We further propose that, when assessed together, political party affiliation (e.g., Republican, Democrat) but not political ideology (e.g., conservative, liberal) predicts face mask wearing, and this effect is mediated by perceptions of efficacy doubts but not perceptions that face masks infringe upon the wearer's independence. We performed a three-wave, time-separated survey study with 226 participants. Each proposal was supported. When assessed together, political party affiliation but not political ideology significantly predicted face mask wearing, and a significant indirect effect was observed via perceptions of efficacy doubts but not independence. Our results support that face mask wearing is a unique preventative action, which should be understood using political theory.

Citing Articles

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Political party affiliation, social identity cues, and attitudes about protective mask-wearing during the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany.

Magnus K, Dammann N, Ziegler E, Ludecke D, Dingoyan D PLoS One. 2024; 19(6):e0302399.

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Mask sociology as a way of action theory: Voices of the face mask among social individuals in the COVID-19 masquerade in South Korea.

Shim J PLoS One. 2023; 18(11):e0293758.

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