COVID-19 infection induces higher trust in strangers

Abstract

How does the COVID-19 pandemic affect interpersonal trust? Most evidence shows that natural disasters reinforce trust and cooperation, but the COVID-19 virus differs from other calamities, since it spreads through contact with people, potentially increasing suspicion and distrust, as, according to contemporaneous writers’ accounts, seems to have been the case with the Black Death, the London plague, and the Spanish influenza. We investigate the link between interpersonal trust and individuals exposed to COVID-19, either vicariously through their community or networks or directly by becoming infected. We rely on an original panel survey, including a survey experiment, with a representative sample of adults in Italy, one of the countries hardest struck by the pandemic. Our experimental findings reveal that priming people about the risk that the pandemic poses to their health leads to a substantial increase in their trust in strangers. Our panel data analysis of within-individual effects shows that those who become infected trust strangers more than those who are not infected. Our findings could be explained by people observing higher than expected altruistic behavior or becoming more dependent on other people’s support, consistent with the “emancipation theory of trust.” When people recover from COVID-19, however, they drop to trusting strangers as much as those who were not directly exposed to the virus, an indication that the positive effects on trust during the pandemic have an emotional source. Nonetheless, the evidence suggests that, in the aggregate, there has been a small but significant increase in trust among the general population relative to prepandemic levels.

A selected literature review of the effect of Covid-19 on preferences

“…The outcomes for the effect of pandemic on trust show mixed results. Most studies report that direct or indirect exposure to the Covid-19 has no effect on the general or interpersonal trust (Brück et al, 2020;Bellani et al, 2022;Bogliacino et al, 2021) while other report it either increased (Gambetta & Morisi 2022) or decreased (Daniele et al, 2020) trust. A second set of studies compare trust measured pre-and after the start of pandemic and most of them report no change (Heap et al, 2021;Lohmann et al, 2023;Umer, 2023), while some report decreased (Li et al, 2020) or increased trust (Esaiasson et al, 2021;Sibley et al, 2020).…”

Adaptive Coping Strategies at the Time of COVID-19: The Role of Social and General Trust

“…A study conducted in Norway found no overall increase in generalized trust in the early phase of the pandemic, which was, however, higher for individuals who had a direct experience with the disease compared to those who perceived themselves as at risk or were worried about the pandemic [27]. Research [28] found a generalized increase in interpersonal trust during the COVID-19 pandemic compared to the pre-pandemic level among the Italian population and increased levels of trust in strangers among people who caught COVID-19. Different results for social and political trust emerged in China, where greater exposure to COVID-19 risks significantly decreased general and political trust among the adult population [29].…”

Variation in Public Trust, Perceived Societal Fairness, and Well-Being before and after COVID-19 Onset—Evidence from the China Family Panel Studies

“…These acts come at a cost to the individual (e.g., social isolation), but are beneficial to the group as a whole (e.g., safeguarding vulnerable groups; i.e., a societal conundrum) [18]. A recent study revealed that educating individuals about the dangers the pandemic poses to their health significantly increased their trust in strangers [19].…”

“…In the present study, several indices of public trust relevant to the COVID-19 pandemic were included: trust in local government officials, doctors, and strangers [12,18,19]. Local government officials and doctors are cooperating to initiate response and communicate the corresponding reasons to the public [12].…”

“…Data were screened according to the following conditions: (1) complete data were available for the fourth and fifth waves on the measures of public trust, perceived societal fairness, depression, and subjective well-being; and (2) samples with missing values for the variables in this study were excluded. Listwise deletion was used in all analyses owing to low levels of missing data (5% on any variable) [19]. Consequently, a total of 15,487 valid data points were obtained, which consisted of 7801 men, 7686 women, 8158 living in urban areas, and 7329 living in rural areas.…”