Anti-intellectualism and the mass public's response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Nat Hum Behav
; 5(6): 706-715, 2021 06.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1207141
ABSTRACT
Anti-intellectualism (the generalized distrust of experts and intellectuals) is an important concept in explaining the public's engagement with advice from scientists and experts. We ask whether it has shaped the mass public's response to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). We provide evidence of a consistent connection between anti-intellectualism and COVID-19 risk perceptions, social distancing, mask usage, misperceptions and information acquisition using a representative survey of 27,615 Canadians conducted from March to July 2020. We exploit a panel component of our design (N = 4,910) to strongly link anti-intellectualism and within-respondent change in mask usage. Finally, we provide experimental evidence of anti-intellectualism's importance in information search behaviour with two conjoint studies (N ~ 2,500) that show that preferences for COVID-19 news and COVID-19 information from experts dissipate among respondents with higher levels of anti-intellectual sentiment. Anti-intellectualism poses a fundamental challenge in maintaining and increasing public compliance with expert-guided COVID-19 health directives.
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Social Perception
/
Communicable Disease Control
/
Health Communication
/
COVID-19
/
Masks
Type of study:
Observational study
/
Prognostic study
/
Qualitative research
/
Randomized controlled trials
Limits:
Humans
Country/Region as subject:
North America
Language:
English
Journal:
Nat Hum Behav
Year:
2021
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
S41562-021-01112-w
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