In this paper, we document changes in political trust in the UK throughout 2020 so as to consider wider implications for the ongoing handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. We analysed data from 18 survey organisations with measures on political trust (general, leadership, and COVID-19-related) spanning the period December 2019–October 2020. We examined the percentage of trust and distrust across time, identifying where significant changes coincide with national events. Levels of political trust were low following the 2019 UK General Election. They rose at the onset of UK lockdown imposed in March 2020 but showed persistent gradual decline throughout the remainder of the year, falling to pre-COVID levels by October 2020. Inability to sustain the elevated political trust achieved at the onset of the pandemic is likely to have made the management of public confidence and behaviour increasingly challenging, pointing to the need for strategies to sustain trust levels when handling future crises.

Existing research highlights the roles of group identities and concerns about mass migration in explaining attitudes towards the European Union (EU). However, studies have been largely silent on whether EU attitudes are also shaped by people's attitudes towards the principles and practices of supranational governance. This research provides a first test of the nature and role of supranational attitudes. We introduce a new measure of supranationalism and, in two studies using samples drawn from the British population, test the psychometric properties of the supranationalism scale. We then identify the socioideological correlates (right-wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation) of supranationalism, along with its effects in predicting EU attitudes and post-Brexit preferences. Our core finding is that supranationalism predicts attitudes towards the EU over and above established factors such as national identity and immigrant threat. Our study thus shows the existence of supranational attitudes among individuals and the relevance of such attitudes to people's opinions about international organizations like the EU.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been an ideal breeding ground for conspiracy theories. Yet, different beliefs could have different implications for individuals’ emotional responses, which in turn could relate to different behaviours and specifically to either a greater or lesser compliance with social distancing and health-protective measures. In the present research, we investigated the links between COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs, emotions (anger, anxiety, and hope), attitudes towards government restrictions, and self-reported compliant behaviour. Results of a cross-sectional survey amongst a large UK sample ( N = 1,579) provided support for the hypothesis that COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs showed a polarizing relationship with compliant behaviour through opposing emotional pathways. The relation was mediated by higher levels of anger, themselves related to a lesser perceived importance of government restrictions, and simultaneous higher levels of anxiety, related to a greater perceived importance. Hope was also related to conspiracy beliefs and to greater perceived importance but played a weaker role in the mediational model. Results suggest that the behavioural correlates of conspiracy beliefs might not be straightforward, and highlight the importance of considering the emotional states such beliefs might elicit when investigating their potential impact.

We test the hypothesis that COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy is attributable to 'distrustful complacency'an interactive and not just additive combination of concern and distrust.Across two studies, 9695 respondents across 13 different parts of Britain reported their level of concern about COVID-19, trust in the UK government, and intention to accept or refuse the vaccine. Multilevel regression analysis, controlling for geographic area and relevant demographics, confirmed the predicted interactive effect of concern and trust. Respondents with both low trust and low concern were 10%-22% more vaccine hesitant than respondents with either high trust or high concern, and 20%-29% more hesitant than respondents with both high trust and high concern. Results hold equally among White, Black, and Muslim respondents, consistent with the view that, regardless of mean level differences, a common process underlies vaccine hesitancy, underlining the importance of tackling distrustful complacency both generally and specifically amongst unvaccinated individuals and populations.

We test the hypothesis that COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy is attributable to ‘distrustful complacency’ – an interactive and not just additive combination of concern and distrust. Across two studies, 9695 respondents across 13 different parts of Britain reported their level of concern about COVID-19, trust in the UK government, and intention to accept or refuse the vaccine. Multilevel regression analysis, controlling for geographic area and relevant demographics, confirmed the predicted interactive effect of concern and trust. Respondents with both low trust and low concern were 10%-22% more vaccine hesitant than respondents with either high trust or high concern, and 20%-29% more hesitant than respondents with both high trust and high concern. Results hold equally among White, Black, and Muslim respondents, consistent with the view that, regardless of mean level differences, a common process underlies vaccine hesitancy, underlining the importance of tackling distrustful complacency both generally and specifically amongst unvaccinated individuals and populations.