Partisan differences in risk-taking in a simulated pandemic

Responses to COVID-19 in the United States were split along partisan political lines throughout the pandemic. People on the political left tended to take the medical threat more seriously and were more likely to adopt preventive health behaviors than those on the political right, resulting in clear differences in state-level policies and health consequences. Here, we examine the origins of these differences, investigating whether they are based on interindividual differences or in party dynamics. Two groups of participants (N=819), who had voted either for Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton in 2016, played the Transmission Game. Players made repeated decisions in a simulated pandemic that involved a trade-off between increasing their expected personal payoff and reducing the chance of a total payoff-loss for themselves and others. In four experimental conditions, the study framing (neutral or pandemic) was crossed with the presence (or absence) of a normative intervention aimed at reducing risk-taking. We observed systematic partisan differences in all conditions, with Republicans taking more risk than Democrats, even in neutrally framed conditions—supporting the idea of interindividual differences between voter groups beyond party dynamics. At the same time, both normative interventions and the pandemic framing reduced risk-taking and expected infection rates in both voter groups. Moreover, we examined individual predictors of risk-taking and demonstrated that game behavior, conservatism, and psychological reactance predict intentions to adopt preventive health behaviors outside the laboratory. We discuss implications for the framing of studies conducted during ongoing crises and lessons for future pandemic preparedness.