I Think, Therefore I Act: The Influence of Critical Reasoning Ability on Trust and Behavior During the COVID‐19 Pandemic

Abstract

Actively open‐minded thinking (AOT) operates in three dimensions: it serves as a norm accounting for how one should search for and use information in judgment and decision making; it is a thinking style that one may adopt in accordance with the norm; and it sets standards for evaluating the thinking of others, particularly the trustworthiness of sources that claim authority. With the first and third dimensions in mind, we explore how AOT influences trust in public health experts, risk perceptions, and compliance with recommended behaviors aimed at slowing the spread and severity of the COVID‐19 pandemic. Using survey data from a nationally representative sample of Americans (N = 857), we tested whether AOT will lead people to place greater trust public health experts (H1). Because these experts have been consistently messaging that COVID‐19 is a real and serious threat to public health, we also hypothesized that trust in experts would be positively associated with high perceived risk (H2), which should have a positive influence on (self‐reported) compliance with CDC recommendations (H3). And because AOT is a self‐directed thinking style, we also expected it to directly influence risk perceptions and, by extension, compliance (H4). Our results support all four hypotheses. We discuss the implications of these results for how risk communication and risk management efforts are designed and practiced.

Political ideology shapes risk and benefit judgments of COVID‐19 vaccines

“…Finally, when it comes to measures to prevent the spread of COVID‐19, the issue of people's trust is certainly a central one (Cohen et al., 2022; Siegrist, 2021). We did not measure this variable, but it is very likely to play a role and should be included in future studies testing our proposed model.…”

Danger control and fear control during public health emergencies: Considering the roles of fear and hope in the EPPM across different levels of trust

“…Scholars suggested that people's lack of efficacy in performing the recommended behaviors could account for this case (Siegrist et al., 2021). Besides, studies on trust in authorities found mixed results regarding the influence of trust on people implementing or accepting protective measures and negative emotions like fear (Cohen et al., 2021; Siegrist et al., 2021; Wachinger et al., 2013). This study takes threat perception, efficacy perception, emotion, and behavioral strategies into account, synthetically demonstrating people's risk processing patterns when facing a pandemic.…”

Do Statistical Rules Interfere with Political Beliefs?

“…Reasoning abilities, as measured by a variety of scales, are found to be strong predictors of accuracy in misinformation and fake news discernment (Ross et al, 2021), and agreement to climate arguments (McPhetres et al, 2019). Similarly, reasoning ability is related to health-related beliefs, such as vaccine attitudes, Coronavirus conspiracy beliefs, preventive behaviours such as hand washing and wearing masks (Čavojová et al, 2022), trust in public health experts and consequently, higher perceived risk of infection and compliance with CDC guidelines during COVID pandemic (Cohen et al, 2021).…”