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Objectives: The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic required rapid public compliance with advice from health authorities. Here, we ask who was most likely to do so during the first wave of the pandemic. Design: Quota-sampled cross-sectional and panel data from eight Western democracies (Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States). Methods: We fielded online public opinion surveys to 26,508 citizens between 19 March and 16 May. The surveys included questions about protective behaviour, perceptions of the pandemic (threat and self-efficacy), as well as broader attitudes towards society (institutional and interpersonal trust). We employ multilevel and fixed-effects regression models to analyse the relationship between these variables. Results: Consistent with prior research on epidemics, perceptions of threat turn out as culturally uniform determinants of both avoidant and preventive forms of protective behaviour. On this basis, authorities could foster compliance by appealing to fear of COVID-19, but there may be normative and practical limits to such a strategy. Instead, we find that another major source of compliance is a sense of self-efficacy. Using individual-level panel data, we find evidence that self-efficacy is amendable to change and exerts an effect on protective behaviour. Furthermore, the effects of fear are small among those who feel efficacious, creating a path to compliance without fear. In contrast, two other major candidates for facilitating compliance from the social sciences, interpersonal trust and institutional trust, have surprisingly little motivational power during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Conclusions: To address future waves of the pandemic, health authorities should thus focus on facilitating self-efficacy in the public.

Can corrective information change citizens’ misperceptions about immigrants and subsequently lead to favorable immigration opinions? While prior studies from the U.S. document how corrections about the size of minority populations fail to change citizens’ immigration-related opinions, they do not examine how other facts that speak to immigrants’ cultural or economic dependency rates can influence immigration policy opinions. To extend earlier work, we conducted a large-scale survey experiment fielded to a nationally representative sample of Danes. We randomly expose participants to information about non-Western immigrants’ (1) welfare dependency rate, (2) crime rate, and (3) proportion of the total population. We find that participants update their factual beliefs in light of correct information, but reinterpret the information in a highly selective fashion, ultimately failing to change their policy preferences. Can corrective information change citizens’ misperceptions about immigrants and subsequently lead to favorable immigration opinions? While prior studies from the U.S. document how corrections about the size of minority populations fail to change citizens’ immigration-related opinions, they do not examine how other facts that speak to immigrants’ cultural or economic dependency rates can influence immigration policy opinions. To extend earlier work, we conducted a large-scale survey experiment fielded to a nationally representative sample of Danes. We randomly expose participants to information about non-Western immigrants’ (1) welfare dependency rate, (2) crime rate, and (3) proportion of the total population. We find that participants update their factual beliefs in light of correct information, but reinterpret the information in a highly selective fashion, ultimately failing to change their policy preferences.

Background Public use of face masks has been widely adopted to halter the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, but a key concern has been whether the effectiveness of face mask use is limited due to the elicitation of false feelings of security that decrease the observance of other protective behaviors, the so-called risk-compensation. Methods We exploit quasi-experimental variation, prompted by three major changes in policy, to assess whether public use of face masks elicit risk-compensation by increasing the number of close contacts or decreasing attention to distancing and hygiene measured in daily nationally representative surveys (N = 106 880). Results Number of close contacts: face mask use prompted by the policy changes decrease the number of contacts in two of the three interventions. In the remaining intervention, it has no effect. Attention to hygiene: across the changes, face masks use does not affect people’s attention to hygiene. Attention to distancing: in two of three interventions, face mask use increase attention to distancing. In the remaining intervention, we see a decrease in attention. Conclusions Overall, public use of face masks may occasionally elicit a narrow form of risk-compensation; specifically, reducing engagement in physical distancing. However, such narrow forms of risk-compensation are limited: the results do not reveal any effects on the actual number of physical contacts, only on the psychological attention to distancing advice. Moreover, the negative effect only appears for one of three interventions. The other two interventions suggest that face mask use increases attention to physical distancing.

In order to halt the spread of COVID-19 governments have engaged in policies that are both economically costly and involve infringements of individual rights. In democratic countries, these policy responses have elicited significant debate but little is known about the extent to which the responses are supported or opposed by the broader public. This article investigates how citizens across eight Western democracies evaluate the specific policies imposed by their governments to contain the COVID-19 pandemic. The study relies on large-scale, longitudinal surveys that are reflective of the national populations (total N = 124,062). On this basis, it is investigated how pandemic-specific and broader political attitudes correlate with support for government responses during a significant part of 2020, a period marked by pandemic restrictions in all the countries. Medium to high levels of support for the government's responses are found in all eight countries. Beyond the regular voters of the government, support is driven by individuals high in interpersonal trust and self-assessed knowledge about COVID-19. This may suggest that halting the spread of COVID-19 is viewed as a collective action problem and mobilises support from those who know how to act and who trust others to act similarly. Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at: https://doi.org/10.1080/01402382.2021.1925821 .

Significance During a pandemic, governments face incentives to not disclose negative information about vaccines to not jeopardize public vaccine acceptance. Against these incentives, the current study provides an experimental, cross-national demonstration of the importance of transparency in communication about a vaccine against COVID-19. While disclosing negative information may increase hesitancy, transparency sustains trust in health authorities and hinders the spread of conspiracy beliefs. Accordingly, the current results provide a clear warning against succumbing to the short-term incentive of withholding information. Sustaining trust during the pandemic is critical for health authorities, both if repeated vaccinations are necessary and in preparation for future health emergencies. Among those who have already lost trust, health communication has little persuasive effect., During the rapid development and rolling out of vaccines against COVID-19, researchers have called for an approach of “radical transparency,” in which vaccine information is transparently disclosed to the public, even if negative information can decrease vaccine uptake. Consistent with theories about the psychology of conspiracy beliefs, these calls predict that a lack of transparency may reduce trust in health authorities and may facilitate the spread of conspiracy theories, which may limit the long-term capabilities of health authorities during and after the pandemic. On the basis of preregistered experiments conducted on large, representative samples of Americans and Danes (N > 13,000), the current study contrasts the effects of vague vaccine communication with transparent communication, which discloses either positive or negative vaccine features. The evidence demonstrates that transparent negative communication may indeed harm vaccine acceptance here and now but that it increases trust in health authorities. Furthermore, the alternative of vague, reassuring communication does not increase vaccine acceptance either and leads to both lower trust and higher endorsement of conspiracy theories.

Background While effective vaccines against the SARS-COV-2 virus have been developed and countries around the world have invested heavily to secure vaccine rollout, a fundamental challenge remains. How do policy-makers around the world ensure high vaccine uptake? What is lacking is a comprehensive assessment that captures a total spectrum of features related to the development of a vaccine, the vaccine's characteristics as well as the implementation of the vaccination program. Methods To provide such an assessment, we designed a conjoint experiment embedded in large-scale surveys based on a random sample from the central database of Danish social security numbers (N = 3,099), providing a sample that is representative for the adult Danish population. In the conjoint experiment, we vary features relating to three dimensions: 1) the stage of vaccine development, 2) the specific characteristics of the vaccine, and 3) the implementation of the vaccination strategy. Results We show that the features relating to characteristics of the specific vaccine have the strongest impact on vaccine acceptance. The features relating to vaccine development were the second most powerful, while the features relating to the implementation of the vaccination strategy were the least. Conclusions The public has a strong preference for vaccines with high efficacy. This may point to a mounting challenge for ensuring high vaccine uptake. Yet, the results also provide evidence that there might be a pathway to naturally alleviate this challenge. Thus, over time the “testing period” of the vaccines are naturally extended, which simultaneously implies an increase in vaccine safety (provided that the roll-out only reveals marginal side-effects). Our results suggest that such an increase in vaccine safety in itself will increase acceptance (in particular, if the roll-out only reveals marginal side-effects). Furthermore, the results indicate that vaccine acceptance can be increased if politicians leave it to the health authorities to communicate about recommendations.

Does lower benefits provide an incentive for refugees to naturalize? I identify the effect of lowering refugees’ benefits on their propensity to naturalize by leveraging quasi-random variation in refugees’ benefit levels induced by a major reform of the Danish social assistance system. The reform sharply reduced social assistance benefits by up to 50 percent for new refugees. I estimate the effect of this decrease in a regression discontinuity design and show that refugees’ propensity to naturalize jumps by about 13½ percentage points at the benefit cutoff. I demonstrate that this marked increase is most likely driven by increased incentives that drive refugees off welfare and into the labor market in the short-term. Moreover, I show that the positive effects on naturalization are concentrated among the most capable refugees who do not face the resource constraints that follow from low education.

I exploit quasi-random assignment of social assistance benefits induced by a major Danish reform to obtain credible causal evidence for the effect of social assistance reductions on residential integra-tion (i.e., the extent to which refugees settle among natives). Comparing otherwise similar refugees, I find that reducing the benefits of refugees markedly deteriorated their residential integration espe-cially in the long-term. In particular, refugees’ residential segregation increased by about 28 percent as a consequence of the benefit reductions. I show that this effect most likely runs through a depri-vation mechanism, where refugees live on a subsistence minimum that significantly limit their loca-tion choice. Moreover, I demonstrate that the overall effect is concentrated among the low educated who face the largest resource constraints, most marginalization, and have the worst chances of inte-grating into the host society at the outset.

Does initial placement matter for refugee integration? I provide new evidence for the effect of placement on refugee integration. Using Danish register data, I exploit that refugees who obtained residency after January 1 1999 were subject to forced dispersal whereas refugees who obtained res-idency before this cutoff were subject to voluntary dispersal. In a regression discontinuity design, I show that forced dispersal—that induced exogenous variation in initial placement—had a large im-pact on refugees’ likelihood of naturalization. Forced placed refugees are about 26 percent less like-ly to naturalize compared to voluntary placed refugees. Moreover, my findings suggest that this placement effect operates on a synergy mechanism between places and individuals’ characteristics: forced placement affects refugee naturalization negatively because it deteriorates their ability to select into locations that match their own characteristics. Consistent with this mechanism, the drop in naturalization rates is concentrated among the most disadvantaged refugees.

The decision to temporarily suspend the AstraZeneca vaccine against COVID-19 raised debate about the suspension's potential effects on the levels of acceptance of the overall vaccination program against COVID-19. Here, we trace the impact of first the Danish decision and subsequent national decisions on general COVID-19 vaccine acceptance by comparing levels of acceptance on different specific dates in eight countries. Overall, the findings suggest that the Danish decision to suspend the vaccine may have had (at least, short-term) cross-national ripple effects on acceptance of a vaccine against COVID-19. Importantly, these adverse ripple effects were specific for individuals within countries that are most closely tied to the same informational eco-system as Denmark (i.e., other Western European countries). These countries (in particular, Italy) may furthermore have been negatively affected twice following both the Danish and the national suspension decisions. This raises the possibility that the decision to suspend vaccines following adverse events poses a collective action problem and highlights the importance of coordination between national health authorities.

How should health authorities communicate to motivate the public to comply with health advice during a prolonged health crisis such as a pandemic? During the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, for example, people have had to comply with successive restrictions as the world faced multiple races between controlling new waves of the virus and the development and implementation of vaccines. Here, we examine how health authorities and governments most effectively motivate the public by focusing on a specific race: between the Alpha variant and the implementation of the first generation of COVID-19 vaccinations in the winter of 2021. Following prior research on crisis communication, we focus on appeals to fear and hope using communicative aids in the form of visualizations based on epidemiological modelling. Using a population-based experiment conducted in United States ($$N = 3,022$$ N = 3 , 022 ), we demonstrate that a hope-oriented visual communication aid, depicting the competing effects on the epidemic curve of (1) a more infectious variant and (2) vaccinations, motivates public action more effectively than a fear-oriented visual communication, focusing exclusively on the threat of the new variant. The importance of the implementation of such hope-oriented messages is further highlighted by cross-national representative surveys from eight countries ($$N = 3,995$$ N = 3 , 995 ), which demonstrate that feelings of fear towards the Alpha variant alone were insufficient to activate strong compliance. Overall, these findings provide general insights into the importance of hope as a health communication strategy during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.

One of the unprecedented measures to contain the spread of COVID-19 during the first wave of the pandemic was to close borders across the world. In Europe, the closing of national borders was perceived as particularly controversial because of the emphasis on the free movement of labor and citizens across borders within the European Union. Here, we examine the level of support for border closings among citizens from eight Western democracies, how support developed over time, and how particular COVID-19-related concerns and considerations predict individual differences in support. Specifically, we collected data on support for tightened border security from 9 April 2020 until 19 December 2020 in quota-sampled online surveys in Denmark, Sweden, United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy and Hungary. Eight Western democracies that differ in their response to and the impact of COVID-19 (N = 67,679). Overall, the data show moderate to high levels of support for tightened border security across all observed countries, with substantial within-country variation. Furthermore, the analyses show that support for border security relates to both usual predictors of anti-immigration views and corona-specific considerations, in particular, personal concerns about the adverse effects of COVID-19 and attributions of blame to international actors such as China and WHO.

The emergence of the novel coronavirus has put societies under tremendous pressure to instigate massive and rapid behavior change. Throughout history, an effective strategy to facilitate novel behaviors has been to morally condemn those who do not behave in an appropriate way. Accordingly, here, we investigate if complying with the advice of health authorities—for example, to physically distance or vaccinate—has emerged as a moralized issue during the COVID-19 pandemic. In Study 1, we rely on data (N = 94K) from quota-sampled rolling cross-sectional online surveys from eight countries (Denmark, Sweden, Germany, France, Italy, Hungary, the United Kingdom, and the United States). We find that large majorities find it justified to condemn those who do not keep a distance to others in public and around half of respondents blame ordinary citizens for the severity of the pandemic. Furthermore, we identify the most important predictors of condemnation to be behavior change and personal concern, while institutional trust and social distrust also play large but less consistent roles. Study 2 offers a registered replication of our findings on a representative sample of Britons (N = 1.5K). It shows that both moralization and condemnation of both vaccination and general compliance are best predicted by self-interested considerations.

During the rapid development and rolling-out of vaccines against SARS-CoV-2, researchers have called for an approach of "radical transparency", where vaccine information is transparently disclosed to the public, even if negative information can decrease vaccine uptake. Consistent with theories about the psychology of conspiracy beliefs, these calls predict that a lack of transparency may reduce trust in health authorities and facilitate the spread of conspiracy theories, which may limit the long-term capabilities of health authorities during and after the pandemic. On the basis of pre-registered experiments conducted on large, representative samples of Americans and Danes (N > 13,000), the present study contrasts the effects of vague vaccine communication with transparent communication, which discloses either positive or negative vaccine features. The evidence demonstrates that transparent negative communication may indeed harm vaccine acceptance here and now but that it increases trust in health authorities. Furthermore, the alternative of vague, reassuring communication does not increase vaccine acceptance either and leads to both lower trust and higher endorsements of conspiracy theories.

What are the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic for people’s political attitudes and behavior? We tested, specifically, whether the psychological burden of the COVID-19 pandemic relates to antisystemic attitudes (dissatisfaction with the fundamental social and political order), peaceful political activism, and political violence. Nationally representative two-wave panel data were collected via online surveys of adults in the United States, Denmark, Italy, and Hungary ( ns = 6,131 and 4,568 in Waves 1 and 2, respectively). Overall, levels of antisystemic attitudes were low, and only a small share of interviewees reported behavioral intentions to participate in and actual participation in political violence. However, preregistered analyses indicated that perceived COVID-19 burden was associated with antisystemic attitudes and intentions to engage in political violence. In the United States, the burden of COVID-19 was also associated with self-reported engagement in violence surrounding the Black Lives Matter protests and counterprotests. We found less robust evidence that perceived COVID-19 burden was associated with peaceful activism.

Objectives: The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic required rapid public compliance with advice from health authorities. Here, we ask who was most likely to do so during the first wave of the pandemic. Design: Quota-sampled cross-sectional and panel data from eight Western democracies (Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Sweden, UK and USA). Methods: We fielded online public opinion surveys to 26,508 citizens between March 19 and May 16. The surveys included questions about protective behavior, perceptions of the pandemic (threat and self-efficacy), as well as broader attitudes towards society (institutional and interpersonal trust). We employ multilevel and fixed-effects regression models to analyse the relationship between these variables. Results: Consistent with prior research on epidemics, perceptions of threat culturally uniform determinants of both avoidant and preventive forms of protective behavior. On this basis, authorities could foster compliance by appealing to fear of COVID-19, but there may be normative and practical limits to such a strategy. Instead, we find that another major source of compliance is a sense of self-efficacy. Using individual-level panel data, we find evidence that self-efficacy is amendable to change and exerts an effect on protective behavior. Furthermore, the effects of fear are small among those who feel efficacious, creating a path to compliance without fear. In contrast, two other major candidates for facilitating compliance from the social sciences, interpersonal trust and institutional trust, have surprisingly little motivational power during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Conclusions: To address future waves of the pandemic, health authorities should thus focus on facilitating self-efficacy in the public.

ObjectivesThe management of the COVID-19 pandemic hinges on the approval of safe and effective vaccines but, equally importantly, on high vaccine acceptance among people. To facilitate vaccine acceptance via effective health communication, it is key to understand levels of vaccine scepticism and the demographic, psychological and political predictors. To this end, we examine the levels and predictors of acceptance of an approved COVID-19 vaccine.Design, setting and participantsWe examine the levels and predictors of acceptance of an approved COVID-19 vaccine in large online surveys from eight Western democracies that differ in terms of the severity of the pandemic and their response: Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Sweden, Italy, UK and USA (total N=18 231). Survey respondents were quota sampled to match the population margins on age, gender and geographical location for each country. The study was conducted from September 2020 to February 2021, allowing us to assess changes in acceptance and predictors as COVID-19 vaccine programmes were rolled out.Outcome measureThe outcome of the study is self-reported acceptance of a COVID-19 vaccine approved and recommended by health authorities.ResultsThe data reveal large variations in vaccine acceptance that ranges from 83% in Denmark to 47% in France and Hungary. Lack of vaccine acceptance is associated with lack of trust in authorities and scientists, conspiratorial thinking and a lack of concern about COVID-19.ConclusionMost national levels of vaccine acceptance fall below estimates of the required threshold for herd immunity. The results emphasise the long-term importance of building trust in preparations for health emergencies such as the current pandemic. For health communication, the results emphasise the importance of focusing on personal consequences of infections and debunking of myths to guide communication strategies.