Moral Identity predicts adherence to COVID-19 mitigation procedures depending on political ideology: A comparison between the USA and New Zealand

 Reducing the spread of infectious viruses (e.g., COVID-19) can depend on societal compliance with effective  mitigations. Identifying factors that influence adherence can inform public policy. In many cases, public health  messaging has become highly moralized, focusing on the need to act for the greater good. In such contexts, a  person’s moral identity may influence behavior and serve to increase compliance through different mechanisms:  if a person sees compliance as the right thing to do (internalization) and/or if a person perceives compliance  as something others will notice as the right thing to do (symbolization). We argue that in societies that are more  politically polarized, people’s political ideology may interact with their moral identity to predict compliance.  We hypothesized that where polarization is high (e.g., USA), moral identity should positively predict compliance  for liberals to a greater extent than for conservatives. However, this effect would not occur where polarization is  low (e.g., New Zealand). Moral identity, political ideology, and support for three different COVID-19 mitigation  measures were assessed in both nations (N  =  1,980). Results show that while moral identity can influence  compliance, the political context of the nation must also be taken into account