“Oklahoma Engaged: How Fear And Anxiety Impact Political Behavior.”

Shana Kushner Gadarian, associate professor of political science in the Maxwell School, was interviewed for the KGOU (Oklahoma) story “Oklahoma Engaged: How Fear And Anxiety Impact Political Behavior.” Gadarian, who studies American politics and political opinion, says that the COVID-19 pandemic has acted as a partisan threat in American society since people take public health advice from their preferred or trusted political party. “There are these differing messages, one about whether or not the pandemic is a threat and two, how you actually protect yourself from it. We see this variation in both who people turn to for those messages and their actual behaviors in light of those recommendations that are coming differently from the Centers for Disease Control than from the White House,” says Gadarian.