Pandemic Identity. Exposure to Coronavirus and In-Group-Out-Group Relations

The spread of the coronavirus and the almost global shutdown of societal life and economic activities are unprecedented in modern history. Previously open borders being regularly crossed by people as well as goods have been closed within days or even hours. Citizens experience severe consequences of the pandemic not only in terms of risks to their own health and that of their loved ones but also with regards to economic recession and a compartmentalization of everyday life enforced by social distancing measures. Against this backdrop, applying insights from biological stress theory, evolutionary psychology, and research on social identities under threat, we analyze how COVID-19 infections among individuals and their immediate environment affect the relationship between in- and outgroups, i.e. xenophobia and national identity. In this vein, we look at both ethnic and civic conceptions of nationhood. We argue that the former, which is based on ancestry and birth, should thrive in the face of the pandemic due to its promise of protection of the in-group by its strict definition of national borders and of allocating resources to co-nationals. Civic conceptions of nationhood emphasizing adherence to a set of political norms and values as well as speaking the national language, however, refer to inherently permeable national borders, which citizens may view as detrimental for slowing the spread of the virus. In addition, negative attitudes towards immigrants should be more prevalent among citizens, which are directly confronted with the pandemic as opposed to people who are not exposed to COVID-19 in their immediate environment. For our analysis, we draw on original survey data with over 6.000 respondents from six European countries (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom) during the peak of the crisis in late April. We simultaneously analyze the impact of individual disease-related experiences and exposure to COVID-19 through hierarchical analyses of 106 European Regions. Preliminary results indicate that individuals who are exposed to COVID-19 are more xenophobic and more likely to hold ethnic conceptions of nationhood than those who are not affected by the infectious disease. We contribute to existing literature in at least three major ways: first, we make use of important interdisciplinary insights into attitudinal consequences of exposure to a severe crisis like the corona pandemic. Second, we employ both the threat of the disease as well as the direct impact of COVID-19 on both individual- and macro-level instead of relying on macro-level data only for drawing micro-level influences. Third, we offer a rich, comparative dataset, which allows us to account for a wide range of severity of the pandemic as well as variation bolstered by subnational data. Overall, our study promises vital insights into how coronavirus alters social identities and societal life.