Beyond Wishful Thinking during the COVID-19 Pandemic: How Hope Reduces the Effects of Death Arousal on Hostility toward Outgroups among Conservative and Liberal Media Users for COVID-19 Information

The COVID-19 pandemic has made death more salient to individuals, which has partly contributed to the amplification of hostility toward others who have different perspectives from oneself. Recognizing that the politicization of COVID-19 and the resulting polarization have become increasingly critical issues, this study investigates how death-related thinking and hope about the pandemic can affect hostility toward outgroups as well as how conservative and liberal media usages moderate the indirect effects of hope. An online survey experiment of people in the U.S. (N = 759) during the pandemic showed that death arousal reduced hope and that these low levels of hope exacerbated hostility toward outgroups in the pandemic context, confirming the positive impact of hope. Importantly, however, our study did not show that hope had a beneficial impact for heavy conservative media users.