Messaging Mask Wearing During the COVID-19 Crisis: Ideological Differences

As the U.S. Government works to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus, messaging is important in getting individuals to comply with public health recommendations, especially as the response from the public seems to be polarized along partisan and ideological lines. Using a recent Centers for Disease Control recommendation of wearing facemasks, I use Regulatory Focus Theory to predict that conservatives will be more responsive to messages related to promotion, while liberals are more responsive to messages related to prevention. Using a pre-registered experimental design, I find no evidence that prevention messages influence attitudes toward mask wearing. Promotion messages, however, cause conservatives to become less supportive of mask wearing, in contrast to theoretical predictions. These findings suggest that, related to messaging about mask wearing, strong ideological differences do not emerge related to the focus of the message.