Browse
Submit Data
Databases
API
Help

Dataset Information

17 Views

0 Connections

0 Citations

0 Reanalyses

0 Downloads

Omics score: 0

Political trust during the Covid-19 pandemic: Rally around the flag or lockdown effects?

ABSTRACT: How can we explain the rise in diffuse political support during the Covid-19 pandemic? Recent research has argued that the lockdown measures generated political support. In contrast, I argue that the intensity of the pandemic rallied people around political institutions. Collective angst in the face of exponentially rising Covid-19 cases depresses the usual cognitive evaluations of institutions and leads citizens to rally around existing intuitions as a lifebuoy. Using a representative Dutch household survey conducted over March 2020, I compare the lockdown effect to the dynamic of the pandemic. I find that the lockdown effect is driven by pre-existing time trends. Accounting for non-linearities in time makes the lockdown effect disappear. In contrast, more flexible modelling techniques reveal a robust effect of Covid-19 infections on political trust. In line with an anxiety effect, I find that standard determinants of political trust - such as economic evaluations and social trust - lose explanatory power as the pandemic spreads. This speaks to an emotionally driven rally effect that pushes cognitive evaluations to the background.

SUBMITTER: Schraff D

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7753486 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Json Xml

Similar Datasets

Coping with the COVID-19 pandemic through institutional trust: Rally effects, compensatory control, and emotions.

Project description:ObjectiveExogenous shocks trigger rally effects, leading the public opinion toward increased trust in institutions. Rally effects have an important social function because they help society react to shocks rapidly and efficiently as a single unit and cohesively face the threat. However, little is known about the individual functions that these effects fulfil. In this study, we aimed to analyze the individual functions of the rally effect.MethodIn a three-wave longitudinal study on a quota sample of the Italian adult population (N = 1070), we analyzed the individual consequences of the increase in institutional trust triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic.ResultsA path analysis showed that increased trust in political, super partes and international institutions fostered well-being, reducing anxiety, collective angst, and anger via the mediation of participants' perceived control over their lives.ConclusionBeyond their well-known social functions, rally effects fulfil the individual function of favoring people's psychological well-being.

| S-EPMC8447168 | biostudies-literature

Risk avoidance, offsetting community effects, and COVID-19: Evidence from an indoor political rally.

Project description:The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) deem large indoor gatherings without social distancing the "highest risk" activity for COVID-19 contagion. On June 20, 2020, President Donald J. Trump held his first mass campaign rally following the US coronavirus outbreak at the indoor Bank of Oklahoma arena. In the weeks following the event, numerous high-profile national news outlets reported that the Trump rally was "more than likely" the cause of a coronavirus surge in Tulsa County based on time series data. This study is the first to rigorously explore the impacts of this event on social distancing and COVID-19 spread. First, using data from SafeGraph Inc, we show that while non-resident visits to census block groups hosting the Trump event grew by approximately 25 percent, there was no decline in net stay-at-home behavior in Tulsa County, reflecting important offsetting behavioral effects. Then, using data on COVID-19 cases from the CDC and a synthetic control design, we find little evidence that COVID-19 grew more rapidly in Tulsa County, its border counties, or in the state of Oklahoma than each's estimated counterfactual during the five-week post-treatment period we observe. Difference-in-differences estimates further provide no evidence that COVID-19 rates grew faster in counties that drew relatively larger shares of residents to the event. We conclude that offsetting risk-related behavioral responses to the rally-including voluntary closures of restaurants and bars in downtown Tulsa, increases in stay-at-home behavior, displacement of usual activities of weekend inflows, and smaller-than-expected crowd attendance-may be important mechanisms.Supplementary informationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11166-021-09359-4.

| S-EPMC8535106 | biostudies-literature

Model uncertainty, political contestation, and public trust in science: Evidence from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Project description:While scientific uncertainty always invites the risk of politicization and raises questions of how to communicate about science, this risk is magnified for COVID-19. The limited data and accelerated research timelines mean that some prominent models or findings inevitably will be overturned or retracted. In this research, we examine the attitudes of more than 6000 Americans across five different survey experiments to understand how the cue giver and cue given about scientific uncertainty regarding COVID-19 affect public trust in science and support for science-based policy. Criticism from Democratic political elites undermines trust more than criticism from Republicans. Emphasizing uncertainty in projections can erode public trust in some contexts. Downplaying uncertainty can raise support in the short term, but reversals in projections may temper these effects or even reduce scientific trust. Careful science communication is critical to maintaining public support for science-based policies as the scientific consensus shifts over time.

| S-EPMC7577608 | biostudies-literature

Real-time effects of COVID-19 pandemic lockdown on pediatric respiratory patients.

Project description:ObjectiveA national lockdown was implemented in Israel to slow the viral spread of COVID-19. We assessed the real-time effects of the lockdown on disease expression and lifestyle modifications in pediatric patients with chronic respiratory disorders.MethodsAn anonymous electronic questionnaire was distributed during lockdown (March-May 2020) to caregivers of patients with chronic respiratory disorders. The primary outcome was change in disease expression and the secondary outcomes were changes in lifestyle and caregivers' emotional status.ResultsThe clinical status of one-third of the 445 participating patients (age 0-18 years) reportedly improved, including decreased respiratory symptoms (n = 133, 33%), exacerbation frequency (n = 147, 35%), and use of reliever medications (n = 101, 27.4%). The condition of ~10% of the patients worsened. Clinical improvement was noted mostly in young patients <5 years (p = .001), asthmatic patients (p = .033), and patients with multiple underlying respiratory disorders (p = .015). Patients whose condition significantly worsened were more likely to be >5 years (p < .001), had increased screen time, decreased physical activity, and shorter sleep duration compared to their younger counterparts (p = .008, <.001, and .001, respectively). Caregivers' reports (n = 236 [58%]) of their own anxiety levels and perceptions of the patients' elevated health risk were increased, regardless of the children's actual clinical status.ConclusionCOVID-19 lockdown was associated with clinical improvement/stability for most of the surveyed children; however, their caregivers' anxiety level was heightened. An increased sedentary lifestyle was reported mostly in older children.

| S-EPMC8250588 | biostudies-literature

Lockdown effects on Parkinson's disease during COVID-19 pandemic: a pilot study.

Project description:The coronavirus-disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak precipitated prolonged lock-down measures. The subsequent social distancing, isolation, and reduction in mobility increased psychological stress, which may worsen Parkinson's disease (PD). Therefore, telemedicine has been proposed to provide care to PD patients. To evaluate the effects of lock-down on motor and nonmotor symptoms in PD patients during the COVID-19 pandemic and the feasibility of telemedicine. Motor and nonmotor aspects were longitudinally assessed using structured questionnaires at baseline (in-person, February 2020) and at follow-up (remote web-based video, lock-down) evaluation. Of the seventeen PD patients evaluated at baseline, fourteen agreed to participate in, and completed follow-up evaluations. There was an impairment of nonmotor aspects measured with the MDS-UPDRS part I (p < 0.001) during lock-down. Nine patients participated independently in the telemedicine evaluation while five needed help from relatives. Our preliminary findings suggest an impairment of nonmotor symptoms in PD patients and support the feasibility and need for telemedicine in monitoring PD patients during the COVID-19 pandemic, to guarantee optimal assistance with reducing the burden of infection. Our findings also suggest that movement disorder clinics should be carefully considering socio-demographics and clinical features when developing telemedicine programs.

| S-EPMC8248756 | biostudies-literature

Lockdowns, lethality, and laissez-faire politics. Public discourses on political authorities in high-trust countries during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Project description:This study looks at population response to government containment strategies during initial stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in four high-trust Northern European countries-Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden-with special emphasis on expressions of governmental trust. Sentiment analysis and topic modeling analysis were performed using Twitter data from three phases during the initial European lockdown, and results were compared over time and between countries. Findings show that, in line with existing theory, assertive crisis responses and proactive communication were generally well-received, whereas tentative crisis responses or indications by the authorities that the crisis was manageable were generally met with suspicion. In addition, while government support was high in all countries during the height of the crisis, messages critical of the government as well as conspiracy theories were nevertheless widely circulated. Importantly, countries with the least assertive strategies, rather than clear negative responses, saw heightened polarization of sentiment in the population. Furthermore, in the case of Sweden, a laissez-faire strategy was generally accepted by the population, despite strong criticism from other countries, until mortality rates started to rise. Possible explanations for these findings are discussed with an emphasis of prior trust as a potential explanatory factor. Future research should seek to replicate these findings in other countries with different levels of prior governmental trust or with a different severity of the COVID-19 outbreak than the countries in this study as well as triangulate the findings of this study using alternative methods.

| S-EPMC8221506 | biostudies-literature

Project description:In two large-scale longitudinal datasets (combined N = 5761), we investigated ability-related political polarization in responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. We observed more polarization with greater ability in emotional responses, risk perceptions, and product-purchase intentions across five waves of data collection with a diverse, convenience sample from February 2020 through July 2020 (Study 1, N = 1267). Specifically, more liberal participants had more negative emotional responses and greater risk perceptions of COVID-19 than conservative participants. Compared to conservatives, liberal participants also interpreted quantitative information as indicating higher COVID-19 risk and sought COVID-related news more from liberal than conservative news media. Of key importance, we also compared verbal and numeric cognitive abilities for their independent capacity to predict greater polarization. Although measures of numeric ability, such as objective numeracy, are often used to index ability-related polarization, ideological differences were more pronounced among those higher in verbal ability specifically. Similar results emerged in secondary analysis of risk perceptions in a nationally representative longitudinal dataset (Study 2, N = 4494; emotions and purchase intentions were not included in this dataset). We further confirmed verbal-ability-related polarization findings on non-COVID policy attitudes (i.e., weapons bans and Medicare-for-all) measured cross-sectionally. The present Study 2 documented ability-related polarization emerging over time for the first time (rather than simply measuring polarization in existing beliefs). Both studies demonstrated verbal ability measures as the most robust predictors of ability-related polarization. Together, these results suggest that polarization may be a function of the amount and/or application of verbal knowledge rather than selective application of quantitative reasoning skills.

| S-EPMC8455947 | biostudies-literature

Covid-19 conspiracy beliefs and containment-related behaviour: The role of political trust.

Project description:The roles of conspiracy beliefs and political trust for public health behaviour have seldomly been studied prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. In this study, we tested whether conspiracy beliefs affect containment-related behaviour in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic and whether this relationship is mediated by political trust, preference for saving the economy or for saving lives. The data were collected at two time points, at the beginning of the epidemic and after the state of emergency was introduced. The sample consisted of 790 adults from Serbia (349 at time 1 and 441 at time 2), of which around 60% were female, with a mean age of around 33. The results indicate that holding more conspiracy beliefs is related to less adherence to containment-related behaviour, both directly and indirectly, via decreased political trust. Preference for saving lives has a direct effect on containment-related behaviour, while preference for saving economy plays no important role in this relationship, although it has a negative zero-order association with containment-related behaviour. The findings are interpreted in light of the importance of governmental pandemic management for containing, i.e. preventing the spread of infectious diseases.

| S-EPMC7843105 | biostudies-literature

Household crowding can have political effects: An empirical study on support for anti-democratic political systems during the COVID-19 lockdown in Italy.

Project description:We analysed some political consequences of household crowding during the 2020 COVID-19 lockdown across a wide quota sample of the Italian adult population, stratified as concerns gender, age, level of education, geographical area of residence, and size of area of residence, interviewed before (May-June 2019) and during (April 2020) the lockdown (N = 1,047, 51.2% women, M age = 50.44, SD = 14.36). Path analysis showed that household crowding during the lockdown was positively associated with support for anti-democratic political systems, through the partial mediation of the perceived relative impact of COVID-19 on one's family and of expectations of future lifestyle restrictions due to the pandemic. These associations did not depend on participants' pre-pandemic socio-economic status and predisposition to strong political leaders. Strengths, limitations, and possible developments of the study are discussed.

| S-EPMC8444628 | biostudies-literature

Effects of lockdown on human sleep and chronotype during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Project description:The COVID-19 pandemic [1] resulted in many countries imposing a lockdown, which in turn reduces sunlight exposure and alters daily social schedules. Since these are the main entrainment factors for biological rhythms [2], we hypothesized that the lockdown may have affected sleep and circadian rhythms. We indeed show that participants slept longer and later during lockdown weekdays, and exhibited lower levels of social jetlag. While this may seem to be an overall improvement of sleep conditions, chronotype was also delayed under the lockdown. This signature of a weaker light-dark cycle should be monitored attentively since it may progressively cause disruptive effects on sleep and circadian rhythms, affecting human performance and health [3].

| S-EPMC7342078 | biostudies-literature

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

OmicsDI is an Elixir interoperability service. Learn more ›

OmicsDI Databases

PRIDE
PeptideAtlas
MassIVE
JPOST Repository
Physiome Model Repository

EGA
EVA
ENA
LINCS
PAXDB
Cell Collective

MetaboLights
Metabolomics Workbench
MetabolomeExpress
GNPS
BioModels
FAIRDOMHub

ArrayExpress
dbGaP
ExpressionAtlas
GEO
NODE

Information

Databases
Help
API
Contact us
Code on GitHub
Terms of use
Submit Data