Early COVID-19 Government Communication Is Associated With Reduced Interest in the QAnon Conspiracy Theory

Does inadequate risk communication during uncertain times trigger the rise of conspiratorial ideas? We hypothesize that, where government COVID-19 risk communication started early, as measured by the number of days between the start of the communication campaign and the first case in the country, citizens are less likely to turn to conspiratorial explanations for the pandemic, which typically assign blame to powerful actors with secret interests. In Study 1a, we find strong support for our hypothesis in a global sample of 111 countries, using daily Google search volumes for QAnon as a measure of interest in QAnon, which is a conspiracy theory contending, among other things, that COVID-19 is a conspiracy orchestrated by powerful actors and aimed at repressing civil liberties. The effect is robust to a variety of sensitivity checks. In Study 1b, we show that the effect is not explainable by pre-pandemic cross-country differences in QAnon interest, nor by ‘secular’ rising interest in QAnon amid the pandemic. A one-standard deviation (26.2days) increase in communication lateness is associated with a 26% increase in QAnon interest. In pre-registered Study 2, we find limited support for the proposition that early communication reduces self-reported pandemic-related conspiratorial ideation in a sample of respondents from 51 countries. Overall, our results provide evidence that interest in extreme ideas, like QAnon, are highly responsive to government risk communication, while less extreme forms of conspiracism are perhaps less so

Patience Predicts Attitudes Toward Vaccination and Uptake of Vaccines

Vaccination is a pressing public health issue. We hypothesize that impatience (discounting future benefits of current actions) leads to lower vaccination rates and worse attitudes toward vaccines. In preregistered individual-level Study 1 (N = 2,614), we document a positive and quantitatively small association (standardized coefficient = 0.06) between patience and attitudes toward vaccines. In Study 2 (N = 76), national-level patience accounts for 21% of the global variation in COVID-19 vaccinations; patience’s effect is small-to-moderate (standardized coefficient = 0.19). In duration models (Study 3; 4,180 ≤N≤ 9,973), more patient countries more quickly reach high COVID-19 vaccination thresholds. The results generalize beyond COVID-19: Patience among European subnational regions predicts better attitudes toward vaccination against the 2009 swine influenza (Study 4: Nregions = 138; Ncountries = 17). Finally (Study 5, N = 75), our results are not specific to pandemics: National patience explains the global variation in infant vaccinations.</p

Patience and Vaccination

Vaccination against COVID-19 and other diseases is a pressing public health issue. We hypothesize that a short-term orientation (impatience) – as it heavily discounts the future benefits of actions taken today – leads to lower rates of vaccination. Using a recently constructed, experimentally validated measure of patience, we document four results consistent with our hypothesis. First, patience alone explains a large share (21%) of the global variation in COVID-19 vaccinations across countries as of November 2021 (Study 1a; N = 76). An increase in patience of one S.D. is associated with 12 p.p. larger vaccination rates. Second, using duration models (Study 1b; 4,180 ≤ N ≤ 9,973), we demonstrate that more patient countries are quicker to reach high COVID-19 vaccination thresholds. Third, our results are not specific to the COVID-19 pandemic: in Study 2a, we show that beliefs regarding the safety and effectiveness of vaccination against swine influenza (H1N1) in 2009 are also well-explained by patience in a sample of sub-national regions of Europe (N regions = 138; N countries = 17). Fourth, in Study 2b, we show that our results are not specific to pandemics: patience also explains the global variation in infant vaccinations against 12 common diseases (N = 75)