Summary: This project seeks to examine how religious and secular individuals view kindness in the context of COVID-19. Kindness is inherently social: what motivates kindness, how people understand kindness—what counts as a kind act, who is deserving of it, and what inspires kindness must be examined in cultural and communal context. I propose a project that seeks to examine how science and faith are mobilized as coping mechanisms with uncertainty and how views of kindness, in particular, compassion and helping, are viewed in the context of the pandemic. For example, while those with appreciation for science may espouse mask-wearing as a kind gesture, religious Americans may espouse prayer or other religious gestures as kindnesses— in addition or instead of other measures. I also seek to examine how conceptions of kindness vary across ingroup and outgroup, and interpersonal kindness as compared with structural, and how these understandings may be related to belief and trust in science.

Significance, Feasibility, and Expected Outcomes. The project is significant particularly in its timeliness: a rare opportunity to gain insight into kindness as we experience a pandemic. I will be on Denison’s pre-tenure leave in Spring 2021, which means I will not have teaching and advising duties and which will allow me to devote considerable time to the project. While the focus on kindness is new, I bring with me experience with the study of public perspectives on religion and science. I expect the project to result in several peer-reviewed publications that advance our empirical and theoretical understandings of how uncertainty shapes and mobilizes understandings of kindness across belief communities, and public engagement via presentation and blog posts, as some possible examples, of these results to a wider community audience.