Humanitarian Feelings, the Behavioral Immune System, and Covid-19 Experience: Explaining Welfare Policy Attitudes in the United States

Humanitarian Feelings, the Behavioral Immune System, and Covid-19 Experience: Explaining Welfare Policy Attitudes in the United States | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Research Article Humanitarian Feelings, the Behavioral Immune System, and Covid-19 Experience: Explaining Welfare Policy Attitudes in the United States Daeheon Jegal This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-9618023/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract This study examines how humanitarian feelings, behavioral immune system (BIS) predispositions, racial resentment, and lived Covid-19 experience shape welfare policy attitudes in the United States. Using original survey data from U.S. adults, the analysis tests both direct and conditional relationships while controlling for political ideology, gender, and age. The results show that humanitarian feelings are positively associated with welfare support. The two BIS dimensions operate in opposite directions: germ aversion is positively related to welfare attitudes, whereas perceived infectability is negatively related to them. Covid-19 experience does not broadly moderate all attitudinal pathways, but it strengthens the positive effect of germ aversion among respondents with extensive pandemic exposure. By contrast, racial resentment does not mediate the effects of BIS on welfare attitudes, and the conditional indirect effects are not statistically significant. These findings suggest that post-pandemic welfare attitudes are shaped more by humanitarian concern, differentiated disease-avoidance psychology, and lived exposure to crisis than by a racial resentment pathway. American Political Science Public Administration welfare attitudes humanitarian feelings behavioral immune system Covid-19 experience racial resentment Full Text Additional Declarations The authors declare no competing interests. Ethics Statement: This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) of the University of Alabama (Protocol # 24-04-7525). All participants provided informed consent prior to participation, and all procedures were conducted in accordance with relevant ethical guidelines. Supplementary Files SurveyQuestionnairesrevised.docx Cite Share Download PDF Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. 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