A Matter of Trust: How Political and Social Trust Relate to the Acceptance of Covid-19 Policies in Germany

Jäckle, Sebastian; Trüdinger, Eva‐Maria; Hildebrandt, Achim; Wagschal, Uwe

doi:10.1080/09644008.2021.2021510

Cited by 18 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…This again illustrates that it is not sufficient to focus solely on the cognitive level when talking about the pandemic at school (e.g., a more intensified discussion of exponential growth processes) and to also include the emotional level (e.g., by addressing the fears of school students). This result is supported by a number of studies that show that the emotional level (specifically, fear, social empathy, and trust in fellow human beings) is of fundamental importance, especially for real behavior in the pandemic (Harper et al 2021;Jäckle et al 2022;Pfattheicher et al 2020). Such a combined cognitive and emotional educational approach can make the risks of a pandemic, such as COVID-19, more comprehensible to school students.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 74%

Attitudes toward Coronavirus Protection Measures among German School Students: The Effects of Education and Knowledge about the Pandemic

Jäckle

Waldvogel

2022

Social Sciences

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This article addresses the question of what attitudes school students in Germany hold regarding the Coronavirus protection measures taken by policymakers. Based on this, it investigates to what extent the students’ assessment of the pandemic is impacted by a better understanding of the spread of the virus, as well as their objective knowledge and their self-perceived subjective knowledge about the pandemic. Using a sample of 563 German school students (ages: 12–26), Part I of our analysis shows that after more than 2 years of the COVID-19 pandemic, (1) a significant exponential growth bias (EGB) (i.e., a systematic underestimation of the speed at which COVID-19 spreads) still exists, and (2) this bias can be reduced by giving simple educational nudges, but (3) this treatment has neither a major effect on the general approval of anti-COVID-19 measures nor on the willingness of the participants to apply specific protective measures themselves. Furthermore, Part II of our study illustrates that both subjective and objective knowledge increase the approval of or willingness for most protective measures. The same holds true for fear of infection. Therefore, an educational approach that combines rational, cognitive, and emotional elements is likely to be best suited to raising young people’s awareness of the dangers of a pandemic such as COVID-19.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 74%

Attitudes toward Coronavirus Protection Measures among German School Students: The Effects of Education and Knowledge about the Pandemic

Jäckle

Waldvogel

2022

Social Sciences

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“…For Germany, Jäckle et al. ( 2022 ) confirm the effect of political trust on mitigation measures. People who trust political leaders and institutions are clearly more likely to accept the arguments of the government when it comes to interventions aiming to tackle the pandemic, even if these represent encroachments on personal liberties (Jäckle et al.…”

Section: Democratic Health In the Covid 19 Pandemic—taking Stockmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…People who trust political leaders and institutions are clearly more likely to accept the arguments of the government when it comes to interventions aiming to tackle the pandemic, even if these represent encroachments on personal liberties (Jäckle et al. 2022 , p. 19). Moreover, the authors detect that this positive effect of trust on the acceptance prevails in liberal minded persons and clearly decreases for authoritarian people.…”

Section: Democratic Health In the Covid 19 Pandemic—taking Stockmentioning

confidence: 99%

Limitations of democratic rights during the Covid-19 pandemic—exploring the citizens’ perception and discussions on dangers to democracy in Germany

et al. 2023

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The governments’ mitigation measures to fight the COVID-19 pandemic are unprecedented in our post-war history. For overcoming this crisis, citizens were expected to act in compliance with these measures in order to control the spread of the virus and keep public health systems functional. This call for protecting the public health at the same time confronted citizens with several and severe limitations of their democratic freedoms and rights: confinement, restriction on freedoms of movement, religion, specific provisions for public protest and finally also limitations to the right of education by school closures. This paper analyzes how citizens perceive the threat the COVID-19 pandemic and especially the mitigation measures posed for democracy. We assume that pandemic waves and pandemic fatigue have an impact on the perception of threat. To see the overall societal picture, we exploit a large-scale archive of online discourse on Twitter out of which we extract democracy-related discourse with the same temporal and geospatial coverage for our investigation. From that data source, we apply computational methods to extract time series data reflecting aggregated opinions and their evolution over time concerned with the correlation of attitudes towards democracy. We them move deeper using a longitudinal panel survey we conducted in November/December 2020, March/April 2021, and July/August 2021. to have a view of the relationship between citizens’ socio-economic status and basic political attitudes. Our multi-method analysis bases on the German case and covers the period from December 2020 to August 2021.

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“…The proposed model of this study. However, in the case of pandemic, the relationship between social trust (represented by trust in KOLs in the article) and policy acceptance remains under debate (Jäckle et al, 2022). Kelly et al (1991) indicated that the intervention with key opinion leaders would reduce HIV risk behaviors in the general population.…”

Section: Trust and Policy Acceptancementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The relationship between social trust and policy acceptance is evidenced by illustration of links of Putnam (1993) ’ among public participation, social capital, and the implementation of policies. However, in the case of pandemic, the relationship between social trust (represented by trust in KOLs in the article) and policy acceptance remains under debate ( Jäckle et al, 2022 ). Kelly et al (1991) indicated that the intervention with key opinion leaders would reduce HIV risk behaviors in the general population.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Go for zero tolerance: Cultural values, trust, and acceptance of zero-COVID policy in two Chinese societies

Huang

Liu

et al. 2022

Front. Psychol.

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This study seeks to explain the wide acceptance of the stringent zero-COVID policy in two Chinese societies—Mainland China (n = 2,184) and Taiwan (n = 1,128)—from perspectives of cultural values and trust. By employing the efficacy mechanism, this study identifies significant indirect effects of trust in government and key opinion leaders (KOL) on people’s policy acceptance in both societies. Namely, people who interpret the pandemic as a collectivist issue and who trust in government will be more accepting of the zero-COVID policy, whereas those who framed the pandemic as an individual issue tend to refuse the policy. Trust in government and KOLs foster these direct relationships, but trust in government functions as a more important mediator in both societies. The different contexts of the two Chinese societies make the difference when shaping these relationships. These findings provide practical considerations for governmental agencies and public institutions that promote the acceptance of the zero-COVID policy during the pandemic.

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A Matter of Trust: How Political and Social Trust Relate to the Acceptance of Covid-19 Policies in Germany

Cited by 18 publications

References 41 publications

Attitudes toward Coronavirus Protection Measures among German School Students: The Effects of Education and Knowledge about the Pandemic

Attitudes toward Coronavirus Protection Measures among German School Students: The Effects of Education and Knowledge about the Pandemic

Limitations of democratic rights during the Covid-19 pandemic—exploring the citizens’ perception and discussions on dangers to democracy in Germany

Go for zero tolerance: Cultural values, trust, and acceptance of zero-COVID policy in two Chinese societies

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