The COVID‐19 disease pandemic is one of the most pressing global health issues of our time. Nevertheless, responses to the pandemic exhibit a stark ideological divide, with political conservatives (versus liberals/progressives) expressing less concern about the virus and less behavioral compliance with efforts to combat it. Drawing from decades of research on the psychological underpinnings of ideology, in four studies (total
Stark ideological differences exist across a wide range of attitudinal and behavioral indices of pandemic response, with more conservative individuals reliably exhibiting less concern about the virus. These findings illustrate the extent to which the pandemic has become politicized. A range of factors contribute to this ideological gap in pandemic response, but some are substantially more important than others. Several factors that have received attention in public and academic discourse about the pandemic appear to contribute little, if at all, to the ideological divide. These include news following, scientific literacy, perceived social norms, and knowledge about the virus. The most critical factors appear to be trust in scientists and trust in Trump, which further highlights the politicization of COVID‐19 and, importantly, the antagonistic nature of these two beliefs. Efforts to change and, especially, disentangle these two attitudes have the potential to be effective interventions.