More than a partisan pandemic: Worldview and <scp>COVID</scp> ‐19 response in the United States

Abstract As the COVID‐19 pandemic unfolded, public responses increasingly divided along political lines: Democrats tended to support policies and behaviors recommended by public health experts and Republicans tended to oppose them. We argue that exclusively party‐based explanations for these patterns are incomplete. Instead, we call attention to people's philosophy about life—their “worldview”—as an important force behind their pandemic responses. We posit that citizens use beliefs derived from interactions with their everyday life to inform their affinities and preferences when analogous matters enter the political realm. Using original cross‐sectional and panel survey data gathered over the course of the pandemic, we theorize and empirically validate a multidimensional measure of worldview. We show that worldview is a coherent, belief‐system‐like entity that remained stable during the pandemic, suggesting its centrality in mass responses to uncertain and novel stimuli. We then show that even before strong party cues emerged, worldview structured Americans' reactions to COVID‐19 and constrained the positions parties could take. Worldview's influence was both direct and indirect, channeled through its relationship with partisan preference. While partisanship is a potent force in political belief systems, much of its effect, we suggest, comes from its association with people's general philosophy about life.