Party Preference Study 1.

COVID-19 was a harsh reminder that diseases are an aspect of human existence and mortality. It was also a live experiment in the formation and alteration of disease-related attitudes. Not only are these attitudes relevant to an individual’s self-protective behavior, but they also seem to be associated with social and political attitudes more broadly. One of these attitudes is Social Darwinism, which holds that a pandemic benefits society by enabling nature “to weed out the weak”. In two countries (N = 300, N = 533), we introduce and provide evidence for the reliability, validity, and usefulness of the Disease-Related Social Darwinism (DRSD) Short Scale measuring this concept. Results indicate that DRSD is meaningful related to other central political attitudes like Social Dominance Orientation, Authoritarianism and neoliberalism. Importantly, the scale significantly predicted people’s protective behavior during the Pandemic over and above general social Darwinism. Moreover, it significantly predicted conservative attitudes, even after controlling for Social Dominance Orientation.

COVID-19（新型冠状病毒肺炎）是一次严酷的警示，让人类切实意识到疾病是自身生存与死亡的固有组成部分。同时，它也是一场关于疾病相关态度形成与变迁的实时实验。此类态度不仅与个体的自我防护行为息息相关，更广泛地与社会及政治态度存在关联。其中一类态度便是社会达尔文主义（Social Darwinism），该理论认为大流行病可通过让自然“淘汰弱者”而使社会受益。本研究在两个国家（样本量分别为N=300、N=533）中，针对用于测量疾病相关社会达尔文主义的疾病相关社会达尔文主义简版量表（Disease-Related Social Darwinism Short Scale，DRSD），验证了其信度、效度与实用价值，并提供了相应实证依据。研究结果显示，DRSD与社会支配倾向（Social Dominance Orientation）、威权主义（Authoritarianism）及新自由主义（neoliberalism）等核心政治态度存在显著关联。尤为重要的是，相较于通用社会达尔文主义，该量表能够更有效地预测民众在新冠疫情期间的防护行为。此外，即便在控制社会支配倾向变量后，该量表仍能显著预测保守主义态度。