Does expert information affect citizens' attitudes toward corona policies? Evidence from Germany.

Information provided by experts is believed to play a key role in shaping attitudes towards policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper uses a survey experiment to assess whether providing citizens with expert information about the health risk of COVID-19 and the economic costs of lockdown measures affects their attitudes towards these policies. Our findings show that providing respondents with information about COVID-19 fatalities among the elderly raises support for lockdown measures, while information about their economic costs decreases support. However, different population subgroups react differently. Men and younger respondents react more sensitively to information about lockdown costs, while women and older respondents are more susceptible towards information regarding fatality rates. Strikingly, our results are entirely driven by respondents who underestimate the fatality of COVID-19, who represent a majority.

Social acceptance of policy instrument design during times of crisis

Disasters create challenges for governments as they need to design effective and legitimate policy instruments to deal with the crisis. In this paper, we analyze social acceptance of regulations and financial investments in crisis governance, taking the example of the COVID-19 pandemic. By using data from two survey experiments in Switzerland, we show that respondents support rules that temporarily centralize decision-making power to the national level but object to regulations that would make contact tracing efforts mandatory. The data shows also that citizens support financial investments of tax money to prevent future crises. Those who are afraid of the health consequences of the crisis are especially favorable to stricter regulations and financial investment, whereas economic worries related to the crisis specifically and political ideology in general barely explain variance in support for crisis responses. In general, this research contributes to our understanding of how survey experiments can be used to analyze social acceptance of policy instrument design. © 2023 Policy Studies Organization.

'All hands on deck' or separate lifeboats? Public support for European economic solidarity during the Covid-19 pandemic

What are the sources of public support for international aid in times of crises? This paper investigates the determinants of public support for the EU Covid-19 aid package ('NextGenerationEU', NGEU), the largest aid package in EU history. Using what is to the best of our knowledge the first EU-wide study of public opinion on the Covid-19 rescue package, we first establish that public support for within-EU redistribution is influenced by long-standing factors such as ideology and citizen identities, corroborating previous literature. Next, our vignette survey experiment shows that short-term shifts in support for the rescue package are driven mostly by elite endorsement cues rather than information about the precise terms of aid or amount. We also find that the role of elite endorsement cues varies across different subsets of the population depending on their level of political sophistication, national level attachment and country context. Conversely, the effects of policy details about the aid package are more mixed. Thus, in the face of multidimensional decision-making in times of crises, national institutions are a key catalyst of moving short-term support for policies of international solidarity. We discuss how our findings have implications for democratic governance and accountability in the EU. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Journal of European Public Policy is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

Using General Messages to Persuade on a Politicized Scientific Issue

Politics and science have become increasingly intertwined. Salient scientific issues, such as climate change, evolution, and stem-cell research, become politicized, pitting partisans against one another. This creates a challenge of how to effectively communicate on such issues. Recent work emphasizes the need for tailored messages to specific groups. Here, we focus on whether generalized messages also can matter. We do so in the context of a highly polarized issue: extreme COVID-19 vaccine resistance. The results show that science-based, moral frame, and social norm messages move behavioral intentions, and do so by the same amount across the population (that is, homogeneous effects). Counter to common portrayals, the politicization of science does not preclude using broad messages that resonate with the entire population.

Priming COVID-19's consequences can increase support for investments in public health.

Can messaging that emphasizes the costs of COVID-19 increase popular support for more proactive public health policies? People who experience disasters often become more supportive of policies to address their underlying causes, and the pandemic may have similar spillover effects for public opinion. To test this idea, the study implements a survey experiment in Italy, Germany, and the United States in which half of the respondents were randomly assigned to a prime about the impact of the pandemic prior to answering questions about their support for public health policies. The results show that respondents who received the prime became more favorable toward increased government spending on domestic and foreign public health programs alike. These treatment effects were consistent across countries, across two different surveys in the United States conducted at different points in time, and across partisan subgroups. However, the treatment did not consistently increase support for more active and intrusive government policies to address specific public health challenges like smoking or HIV/AIDS. The results suggest that public health advocates may benefit from messaging that connects COVID-19 to the need for public health funding beyond the context of the pandemic.

Stigmatization in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic: a survey experiment using attribution theory and the familiarity hypothesis.

BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic has created a global health crisis, leading to stigmatization and discriminatory behaviors against people who have contracted or are suspected of having contracted the virus. Yet the causes of stigmatization in the context of COVID-19 remain only partially understood. Using attribution theory, we examine to what extent attributes of a fictitious person affect the formation of stigmatizing attitudes towards this person, and whether suspected COVID-19 infection (vs. flu) intensifies such attitudes. We also use the familiarity hypothesis to explore whether familiarity with COVID-19 reduces stigma and whether it moderates the effect of a COVID-19 infection on stigmatization. METHODS: We conducted a multifactorial vignette survey experiment (28-design, i.e., NVignettes = 256) in Germany (NRespondents = 4,059) in which we experimentally varied signals and signaling events (i.e., information that may trigger stigma) concerning a fictitious person in the context of COVID-19. We assessed respondents' cognitive (e.g., blameworthiness) and affective (e.g., anger) responses as well as their discriminatory inclinations (e.g., avoidance) towards the character. Furthermore, we measured different indicators of respondents' familiarity with COVID-19. RESULTS: Results revealed higher levels of stigma towards people who were diagnosed with COVID-19 versus a regular flu. In addition, stigma was higher towards those who were considered responsible for their infection due to irresponsible behavior. Knowing someone who died from a COVID infection increased stigma. While higher self-reported knowledge about COVID-19 was associated with more stigma, higher factual knowledge was associated with less. CONCLUSION: Attribution theory and to a lesser extent the familiarity hypothesis can help better understand stigma in the context of COVID-19. This study provides insights about who is at risk of stigmatization and stigmatizing others in this context. It thereby allows identifying the groups that require more support in accessing healthcare services and suggests that basic, factually oriented public health interventions would be promising for reducing stigma.

Who deserves what and why during the COVID-19 pandemic: Applying the CARIN principles of deservingness to the American welfare state.

How does the public decide who is deserving of welfare benefits? To shed light on this question, we investigate whether the CARIN principles of deservingness-specifically the ideas of control, attitude, reciprocity, identity, and need-impact the public's perception of American welfare target groups. We draw contrast between traditional welfare programs and pandemic-related programs to gain a more comparative understanding of the principles' effects as well as to determine what role the pandemic may play in shaping welfare perceptions. We report that positive, deserving social constructions exist for recipients of both traditional and pandemic-related welfare programs, and we find evidence that the distinction between traditional and pandemic-related programs is important for deservingness perceptions in the US. Overall, these results suggest the importance of the CARIN criteria in an American context.

Macroeconomic expectations and consumer sentiment during the COVID-19 pandemic: The role of others' beliefs.

This paper investigates the effect of information about cross-country ratings of the government's and the public's reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic on consumers' macroeconomic expectations and sentiment. We conduct consumer surveys with randomized control trials (RCTs) in two waves in Thailand and Vietnam. The information treatments have the strongest effect when the information shown contradicts consumers' prior beliefs. In the first survey, conducted when the first lockdown was eased, treatment effects are stronger in Vietnam, causing more optimistic expectations and sentiment. In the second survey, conducted at the start of the second wave of infections, treatment effects are stronger in Thailand, causing a more pessimistic outlook.

Measuring consumption over the phone: Evidence from a survey experiment in urban Ethiopia.

The paucity of reliable, timely household consumption data in many low- and middle-income countries have made it difficult to assess how global poverty has evolved during the COVID-19 pandemic. Standard poverty measurement requires collecting household consumption data, which is rarely collected by phone. To test the feasibility of collecting consumption data over the phone, we conducted a survey experiment in urban Ethiopia, randomly assigning households to either phone or in-person interviews. In the phone survey, average per capita consumption is 23 percent lower and the estimated poverty headcount is twice as high than in the in-person survey. We observe evidence of survey fatigue occurring early in phone interviews but not in in-person interviews; the bias is correlated with household characteristics. While the phone survey mode provides comparable estimates when measuring diet-based food security, it is not amenable to measuring consumption using the 'best practice' approach originally devised for in-person surveys.

The Big Lie: Expressive Responding and Misperceptions in the United States

Misinformation about events surrounding the 2020 election and the COVID-19 pandemic pose an existential threat to American democracy and public health. Public opinion surveys reveal that high percentages of Republicans indicate that they endorse some aspects of mistaken beliefs surrounding election fraud in the 2020 election. Still, understanding how to measure the endorsement of misperceptions is critical for understanding the threat at hand. Are high levels of mistaken beliefs genuinely held, or are they partially a function of expressive responding? I address this question through a set of survey experiments encouraging accuracy-oriented processing among the general public. Using well-powered surveys of Republicans and Independents, I find that treatments designed to encourage more accurate responses are ineffective in reducing the endorsement of partisan electoral and public health misperceptions and can in some cases even backfire. These findings suggest that support for these misperceptions is genuinely held.

Childcare, Work, and Household Labor During a Pandemic: Evidence on Parents’ Preferences in the United States

By exacerbating a pre-existing crisis of childcare in the United States, the COVID-19 pandemic forced many parents to renegotiate household arrangements. What shapes parents' preferences over different arrangements? In an online conjoint experiment, we assess how childcare availability, work status and earnings, and the intra-household division of labor shape heterosexual American parents' preferences over different situations. We find that while mothers and fathers equally value outside options for childcare, the lack of such options - a significant feature of the pandemic - does not significantly change their evaluations of other features of household arrangements. Parents' preferences over employment, earnings, and how to divide up household labor exhibit gendered patterns, which persist regardless of childcare availability. By illustrating the micro-foundations of household decision-making under constraints, our findings help to make sense of women's retrenchment from the labor market during the pandemic: a pattern which may have long-term economic and political consequences.

Crisis affectedness, elite cues and IO public legitimacy.

What effects do international crises have on the public legitimacy of International Organizations (IOs)? Deviating from previous research, we argue that such crises make those international organizations more salient that are mandated to solve the respective crisis. This results in two main effects. First, the public legitimacy of those IOs becomes more dependent on citizens' crisis-induced worries, leading to a more positive view of those IOs. Second, as the higher salience also leads to higher levels of elite communication regarding IOs, elite blaming of the IOs during crises results in direct negative effects on public legitimacy beliefs on IOs. Finally, both the valence and content of the elite discourse additionally moderate the positive effects of crisis-induced worries. Implementing survey experiments on public legitimacy beliefs on the WHO during the COVID-19 crisis with about 4400 respondents in Austria, Germany and Turkey, we find preliminary evidence for the expectations derived from our salience argument. In the conclusion, we discuss the implications of these findings for future research on IO legitimacy and IO legitimation. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11558-021-09452-y.

Taking the Cloth: Social Norms and Elite Cues Increase Support for Masks among White Evangelical Americans

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the CDC and the WHO have recommended face masks as key to reducing viral transmission. Yet, in the USA, as the first wave erupted in the Summer of 2020, one-fifth of individuals said they wore masks at most "some of the time", and a majority said that people in their community wore masks at most "some of the time". What strategies most effectively encourage compliance with this critical COVID-19 prevention measure? Relying on social identity theory, we experimentally assess two possible mechanisms of compliance, elite endorsement, and social norms, among a representative sample of white US-born Evangelicals, a group that has shown resistance to prevention measures. We find evidence for both mechanisms, but social norms play a remarkably important role - increasing support for mask-wearing by 6% with spillover effects on other prevention guidelines. Our findings confirm the role that appeals to norms and elite endorsements play in shaping individual behavior and offer lessons for public health messaging.

Too Harsh for Me but Not for Thee? Threat Control, Personal Freedom, and Perception of Pandemic Policy

Policies implemented to control the COVID-19 (C19) pandemic have faced public resistance. We examined this issue via an experimental vignette study embedded in a May 2020 national (U.S.) survey conducted by YouGov. Specifically, we explore how the public perceived a local policymaker proposing a C19-related isolation policy, based on the policy’s invasiveness or its punitivity. We find that more intrusive and more punitive policies generally resulted in colder feelings towards, and harsher perceptions of, the policymaker. However, our results suggest that the main driver of public sentiment towards the policymaker was the invasiveness of the proposed policy, with the policy's punitivity being less impactful. We discuss these findings in relation to policymaking, policy support and compliance, and tradeoffs between informal/formal controls, and intrusive/punitive policies. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of JQ: Justice Quarterly is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

When good news backfires: Feelings of disadvantage in the Corona crisis: IPSR

The Corona crisis is an unprecedented challenge for societies. Lockdowns and physical distancing orders have generated economic, social and health-related consequences in many countries. In this regard, we evaluate how information about positive economic expectations during the crisis affects citizens’ attitudes. Using a real-world survey experiment, our analyses indicate that information about a positive economic outlook and governmental support to mitigate the crisis actually promote people’s subjective feelings of disadvantage rather than reducing them. Interestingly, it seems that information about economic recovery that opens up opportunities may backfire due to increased upward comparisons and perceived competition. Structural equation analyses suggest that this relationship is mediated by critical views about democratic institutions during the crisis. Citizens lose confidence in their governments and democratic decision-makers to uphold principles of fairness after the crisis ends. Our results have important implications on how to communicate measures that aim to deal with the crisis.

Childhood COVID-19 vaccine acceptance and preference from caregivers and healthcare workers in China: A survey experiment.

With approval of more COVID-19 vaccines for children, vaccine attributes may influence parental acceptance and choices. We aimed to assess effects of vaccine attributes and information on herd immunity on childhood COVID-19 vaccine acceptance. A survey experiment was conducted with caregivers of children aged 6 months to 11 years old and health care workers (HCWs) in China from September 14 to November 18, 2021. Respondents were randomly assigned to receive differing information on herd immunity (> 80% of the entire population must be vaccinated; or no information). Respondents then completed eight discrete choice tasks to assess vaccine acceptance based on attributes. 2331 (90.07%) of 2588 surveyed caregivers and 1576 (92.71%) of 1700 surveyed HCWs would accept COVID-19 vaccination for children, respectively. High Odds Ratios (OR) were found for acceptance of a vaccine with 90% over 50% efficacy (OR 6.70 [95% CI 6.11-7.35] for caregivers; 11.44 [10.12-12.95] for HCWs); and risk of adverse reactions to be 1 over 10 in 10,000 (3.96 [3.72-4.22] for caregivers; 2.98 [2.76-3.22] for HCWs). To achieve herd immunity target (> 80% vaccination coverage), vaccine efficacy should reach over 70% and risk of adverse reactions lower than 1 in 10,000. Knowledge on herd immunity target increased the odds of vaccine acceptance (1.82 [1.34-2.46] for caregivers; 2.42 [1.58-3.72] for HCWs). Childhood COVID-19 vaccine acceptance was high in China, independent of child's age, and depended on vaccine attributes.

Is compassion the flip side of punitiveness? Incorporating COVID-19 crisis in experimental vignettes to examine support for visitation and vaccination in prison.

Objectives: The public hold both punitive and pragmatic attitudes toward prison policy. Yet it is unclear whether the public supports compassionate efforts that do not directly relate to recidivism. This study explores the role of exclusionary symbolic aims (prioritizing non-prisoner groups), inclusionary symbolic aims (minimizing health risk for the vulnerable), and cost (taxes). Methods: Using a quota-based national sample fielded in spring 2021 (N=1260), we embedded two experimental vignettes to assess support for vaccination priorities and personal protective equipment (PPE) for in-person visitation. We also examine respondent experiences (e.g., exposure to COVID-19, vaccine status, personal or vicarious arrest) and beliefs (e.g., political ideology, racial resentment, stigma). Results: Consistent with dominant exclusionary symbolic aims, respondents showed strong preferences for non-prisoner groups in facilitating safe in-person visits (in long-term care facilities) and vaccine priorities (to prison guards). Inclusionary symbolic aims were less clear when examining risk from vaccine side effects or helping vulnerable populations (the elderly). High cost reduced support for compassionate policy. Conclusions: Public support for policies aimed at maintaining the health of individuals who are incarcerated may be motivated by similar factors as punishment preferences. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11292-022-09523-z.

Do Cues Regarding the Behavior of Others Lead to Normative Behavior during the COVID-19 Pandemic?

During the COVID-19 pandemic, what impact does the social context in offering incentives have on people's normative behavior? This paper focuses on the effect of normative framing and examines whether cues signaling other people's respect or disrespect for norms affect normative behavior with the Japanese case study of refraining from going out under the pandemic situation. Drawing on Goal Framing theory, which predicts the effect of norms depending on the salience of normative frame, it is argued that normative respect or disrespect cues that are related to or unrelated to a targeted norm have influences on normative behavior (same norm effect/cross-norm effect). We tested this using data from an online survey experiment in which respondents were randomly assigned to treatment and control groups. The statistical results showed that all treatments had no significant effects on the intention to refrain from going out in the OLS regression, whereas normative disrespect cues treatments had significant negative effects only for the low quantile respondents in quantile regression. It partially supported the same-norm effect and the cross-norm effect. These findings suggest that the social context that policymakers offer incentives also matters for eliciting more cooperative and normative behavior under the pandemic situation. © 2021 Japanese Association for Mathematical Sociology. All rights reserved.

Curtailment of Civil Liberties and Subjective Life Satisfaction.

This analysis focuses on the lockdown measures in the context of the Covid-19 crisis in Spring 2020 in Germany. In a randomized survey experiment, respondents were asked to evaluate their current life satisfaction after being provided with varying degrees of information about the lethality of Covid-19. We use reactance as a measure of the intensity of a preference for freedom to explain the variation in the observed subjective life satisfaction loss. Our results suggest that it is not high reactance alone that is associated with large losses of life satisfaction due to the curtailment of liberties. The satisfaction loss occurs in particular in combination with receiving information about the (previously overestimated) lethality of Covid-19. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10902-021-00491-1.

How do COVID-19 vaccine mandates affect attitudes toward the vaccine and participation in mandate-affected activities? Evidence from the United States.

The spread of COVID-19 has prompted many governments, schools, and companies to institute vaccine mandates. Proponents suggest that mandates will enhance public health and increase vaccination rates. Critics suggest that evidence of mandates' effectiveness is unclear and warn that mandates risk increasing societal inequalities if unvaccinated minority groups opt out of educational, commercial, and social activities where mandates are required. We conduct an original survey experiment on a nationally representative sample of 1,245 Americans to examine the efficacy and effect of COVID-19 mandates. Our findings suggest that mandates are unlikely to change vaccination behavior overall. Further, they may increase the likelihood that sizable percentages of the population opt out of activities where vaccines are mandated. We conclude that mandates that do go into effect should be accompanied by persuasive communications targeted to specific information needs and identities.