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Sustaining Livelihoods or Saving Lives? Economic System Justification in the Time of COVID-19.

ABSTRACT: An ongoing debate in the United States relating to COVID-19 features the purported tension between containing the coronavirus to save lives or opening the economy to sustain livelihoods, with ethical overtones on both sides. Proponents of opening the economy argue that sustaining livelihoods should be prioritized over virus containment, with ethicists asking, "What about the risk to human life?" Defendants of restricting the spread of the virus endorse saving lives through virus containment but contend with the ethical concern "What about people's livelihoods and individual freedoms?" A commonly held belief is that political ideology drives these differential preferences: liberals are more focused on saving lives, whereas conservatives favor sustaining livelihoods with no additional government intervention in the free-market economy. We examine these lay beliefs among US residents in four studies and find that economic system justification (ESJ), an ideology that defends the prevailing economic system when under threat, is a reliable psychological predictor beyond political ideology. Specifically, compared to those who scored low on ESJ, people who scored high on ESJ judged China as more justified in downplaying the spread of virus to protect its interest in the global free-market economy, supported in-person over online learning, viewed shelter in place as less desirable, and perceived the opening of the Texas economy as more legitimate. We also find that multiple psychological mechanisms might be at work-resistance to market interventions, perceived legitimacy of opening the economy, perceived seriousness of the health crisis, and violation of human rights.

Supplementary information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10551-022-05091-4.

SUBMITTER: Jain SS

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8964385 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:BackgroundPrevious studies have shown that national cultural traits, such as collectivism-individualism and tightness-looseness, are associated with COVID-19 infection and mortality rates. However, although East Asian countries have outperformed other countries in containing COVID-19 infections and lowering mortality in the first pandemic waves, no studies to date have examined flexibility-monumentalism, a cultural trait that uniquely distinguishes East Asia from the rest of the world. Moreover, none of the previous studies have explored mechanisms underpinning the association between national culture and COVID-19 mortality.AimsOur study fills in these gaps by examining the association between flexibility-monumentalism and COVID-19 mortality, adjusting for important covariates and by analyzing mask wearing and fear of COVID-19 during the first weeks of the pandemic as plausible mechanisms underpinning this association.MethodsWe constructed and analyzed a dataset including 37 countries that have valid information on flexibility-monumentalism, COVID-19 deaths as of 31 October 2020 (before the start of vaccination campaigns), and relevant covariates including two other national cultural traits (individualism-collectivism and tightness-looseness) and other national characteristics (economic, political, demographic and health). Multiple linear regression with heteroscedasticity-consistent standard errors was used to assess the independent effect of flexibility-monumentalism on COVID-19 mortality. Mediation was assessed by examining the indirect effects of flexibility through mask wearing and fear of COVID-19 and determining the statistical significance through bootstrapping. Graphical and delete-one analysis was used to assess the robustness of the results.ResultsWe found that flexibility was associated with a significant reduction in COVID-19 mortality as of 31 October 2020, independent of level of democracy, per capita GDP, urbanization, population density, supply of hospital beds, and median age of the population. This association with mortality is stronger and more robust than for two other prominent national cultural traits (individualism-collectivism and tightness-looseness). We also found tentative evidence that the effect of flexibility on COVID-19 mortality may be partially mediated through mask wearing in the first weeks of the pandemic.

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Sustaining Livelihoods or Saving Lives? Economic System Justification in the Time of COVID-19.

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