Faith in Trump, Moral Foundations, and Social Distancing Defiance during the Coronavirus Pandemic

Authors

Amanda K. Graham, Georgia Southern UniversityFollow
Francis T. Cullen, University of CincinnatiFollow
Justin T. Pickett, University at Albany
Cheryl Lero Jonson, Xavier University
Murat Haner, University of South FloridaFollow
Melissa M. Sloan, University of South Florida

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

9-10-2020

Publication Title

Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World

DOI

10.1177/2378023120956815

ISSN

2378-0231

Abstract

Purpose:

Over the past several months, the coronavirus has infected more than six million Americans and killed nearly 200,000. Governors have issued stay-at-home orders, and prosecutors have filed criminal charges against individuals for defying those orders. And yet many Americans have still refused to keep their distance from their fellow citizens, even if they had symptoms of infection. The authors explore the underlying causes for those who intend to defy these norms.

Methods:

Using national-level data from a March 2020 survey of 989 Americans, the authors explore intentions to defy social distancing norms by testing an interactionist theory of foundation-based moral behavior in combination with faith in President Trump during the coronavirus pandemic. The analysis controls for a range of variables, including measures of low self-control and deterrence.

Results:

Low self-control is the strongest predictor of defiance intentions. Consistent with interactionist theory, defiance intentions are significantly higher for those holding specific faith in Trump and those endorsing binding foundations. Furthermore, the interaction of these two variables is significant and in the predicted direction. The results hold for two different measures of faith in Trump.

Conclusions:

Even with a strong effect for low self-control, faith in President Trump is a strong predictor of refusal to social-distance, and its effect is largest among individuals high in binding foundations.

Recommended Citation

Graham, Amanda K., Francis T. Cullen, Justin T. Pickett, Cheryl Lero Jonson, Murat Haner, Melissa M. Sloan. 2020. "Faith in Trump, Moral Foundations, and Social Distancing Defiance during the Coronavirus Pandemic." Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World, 6: 1-23 Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. doi: 10.1177/2378023120956815
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/crimjust-criminology-facpubs/268

Copyright

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).