Trust in the time of coronavirus: longitudinal evidence from the United States

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed most countries to an unexpected crisis, with unclear consequences for citizens’ trust in others and in public authorities. This study shed lights on how social and political trust changed during the pandemic. We conducted a longitudinal survey in the US of about 1000 respondents at three points in time during the pandemic. We elicited respondents’ trust towards other people and towards different institutional authorities, along with attribution of responsibility for the current situation. Results show that institutional trust fell, while interpersonal trust slightly increased, especially during the peak of the first pandemic wave. This dynamic was mainly driven by Republicans, whose institutional trust decreased, especially when exposed to COVID-19, along with growth in social trust. Considering that Republicans attributed, at the time, more responsibilities to their political leader, we argue that institutional trust was crowded out by social trust. Disappointed voters felt unprotected by institutions and looked for support elsewhere in society. Consistent with this, though, in the reverse direction, experimental results from the third wave show that Republicans increased institutional trust. However, social trust fell when primed with positive information about the pandemic. Overall, these findings suggest that societal shocks may induce people to exchange formal with informal institutions as a coping strategy, with social and political trust moving in opposite directions.

Protecting public’s wellbeing against COVID-19 infodemic: The role of trust in information sources and rapid dissemination and transparency of information over time

“…The comparatively higher trust in official media is likely due to that the official media represents the voice of the government and is regarded as highly reliable during a pandemic (80,81). In addition, trust in official media was significantly increased over a two-year period, which is opposite to research findings from Europe and the USA showing trust in official media decreased both in short-term (82) and in long-term (83,84) during the COVID-19 pandemic. In contrast, trust in social media was slightly decreased two years after COVID-19 outbreak.…”

COVID-19 infection induces higher trust in strangers

“…With respect to the direction of the effect, except for research by Lo Iacono et al. ( 29 ) that finds no change in the level of trust among those who suffered from COVID-19 in the first phase of the pandemic in The Netherlands, our results are in line with longitudinal studies showing that interpersonal trust increased in different countries at the beginning of the pandemic ( 18 – 20 ). Despite disrupting human lives, the pandemic does not seem to have disrupted interpersonal relations.…”

“…D1 ). This finding is in line with longitudinal evidence from different countries showing that interpersonal trust increased, on average, during the first phase of the pandemic ( 18 – 20 ).…”

“…Our finding that the effect on trust of being individually exposed to COVID-19 declines once people recover from the virus suggests that the effect of COVID-19 may be more ephemeral than that produced by other natural disasters. However, since virtually everyone was exposed to the threat of the virus, it is possible that the COVID-19 pandemic led to a generalized increase in interpersonal trust relative to pre-pandemic level, regardless of whether people individually caught the virus, as longitudinal evidence ( 18 – 20 ) and our own analysis indicate.…”

“…Consistent with these theories, recent studies find that exposure to the “first wave” of the COVID-19 crisis is associated with increased charity donations in the United States and in Italy ( 15 ); even a mere reminder of the negative consequences of the pandemic is shown to increase donations in England ( 16 ) and make US citizens more willing to prioritize society’s problems over their own ( 17 ). Furthermore, longitudinal evidence shows that, relative to prepandemic levels, interpersonal trust increased during the first phase of the pandemic in Sweden ( 18 ), Korea ( 19 ), and the United States ( 20 ).…”