Politics or Science? Predictors of Beliefs about the COVID-19 Response

It is now August, and in much of the U.S., people are still subject to public mask mandates, social distancing expectations, and gathering restrictions, which began as early as March. Citizens disagree over whether these measures are helpful or harmful— why?

Some may view it as a mere political disagreement: those on the political left support stronger restrictions to protect citizens’ health, while those on the right oppose unnecessary infringements upon individual freedom. Others, including Anthony Fauci, blame those who are “anti-science.”

Results of this research reveal a stronger predictor of pandemic views: one’s belief in science as an authority. Specifically, reopening supporters are more likely to believe that 1) people should be skeptical of bias in science and 2) non-scientist citizens can be trusted to reason with the data themselves. This is not the same as being “anti-science,” any more than distrusting current government officials makes one against the role of government.

Additionally, by separating respondents into “end restrictions” and “do not end restrictions” groups, this survey explores which kinds of pandemic-related issues are important to them.

Sample

The sample consisted of 180 U.S. residents, mostly recruited from general and partisan Facebook groups. To be categorized as supporters or opponents of immediate reopening, participants were asked the following:

Suppose President Trump were to hold an urgent mandatory referendum tomorrow, proposing to end all COVID-19-related restrictions. If the proposal passed, all businesses in the U.S. could operate unrestricted and people could be free to gather, with no size limitation, social distancing, or mask-wearing requirements, and foreigners from any location could enter the U.S. under ordinary policies.

A slight majority of the sample would support ending restrictions. This is not to say that a slight majority of the U.S. population supports it; the aim was to get a sample of broad and roughly balanced views.

This survey was not mainly about how political views influence pandemic views, although many assumed it was, based on the final optional “What hypotheses do you think I might be trying to test?” question. It included a question about political labels just to determine whether the correlation between pandemic views and science views is meaningfully separate from (and stronger than) the association between pandemic views and political views, or between political views and science views.

Clearly, reopening supporters are more likely to consider themselves right-wing, and reopening opponents are more likely to consider themselves left-wing. There is no significant difference between the “somewhat left-wing” and “very left-wing” respondents (85% “no” vs. 82% “no,” p = 0.80), nor between “somewhat right-wing” and “very right-wing” (78% “yes” vs. 75% “yes,” p = 0.74). The anti-reopening group shows greater variation in political labels.

Section I: Specific Beliefs about the COVID-19 Response

Surely respondents within the same “yes” or “no” category do not share every belief about the pandemic equally. Each respondent is placed on a spectrum of how strongly one supports the ongoing pandemic response, from -24 to +24, based on agreement (from 1 = “Strongly Disagree” to 4 = “Strongly Agree”) with the following randomly assorted statements:

Predictions

• - Extended quarantine, lockdown, and stay-at-home orders will ultimately be more harmful than helpful.
• - Pandemic-related political actions are a dangerous slippery slope to government overreach.
• + Quarantine, lockdown, and stay-at-home orders will end up saving many lives.
• + Reopening now will lead to a dangerous increase in infections.

Explanations of Data

• - Statistics show that COVID-19 is not a real threat to most people.
• - Countries that did not have strict lockdown orders are still quite safe compared to countries with stricter responses.
• + There is sufficient scientific evidence that mask-wearing and social distancing help protect oneself and others from the virus.
• + The more people in a country comply with orders, the sooner the virus ceases to be a problem in that country.

Judgments

• - Panic about the pandemic is overblown.
• - Those who support extended quarantines don’t care about how many working people’s livelihoods are suffering.
• + It is alarming that some people do not take the virus seriously.
• + Those who support reopening don’t care that more elderly and vulnerable people may die.

Policy Preferences

• - Businesses should be allowed to continue their regular activities.
• - People should not be expected to wear masks in public.
• + Government actions should follow the recommendations of public health officials.
• + Large gatherings should be prohibited.

The distributions of scores are displayed below:

Many pro-reopening respondents are fully against all forms of alarmism and anti-COVID-19 measures, but very few anti-reopening respondents fully support all of them; there is broader variation in the anti-reopening group. These scores will be used to determine correlations between “support for pandemic response” and scores in the next section.

Section II: Beliefs about Science

Discussions of the COVID-19 response reveal different beliefs about science’s position in the public sphere; namely, supporters of anti-pandemic restrictions insist “science” should be respected as authoritative, while critics question this view. Rather than group such attitudes into “pro-science” and “anti-science” camps, it may be useful to group them more specifically. For the following statements, randomly assorted, respondents were asked to express their agreement (from 1 = “Strongly Disagree” to 4 = “Strongly Agree”):

Trust in Scientists’ Motives

A meme in the “Americans for Liberty” Facebook group says, “Scientists and doctors can be bought just as easily as politicians.” When scientists claim that the virus is very serious and restrictions reduce the spread, the typical pro-reopening response is not that science is irrelevant or can never be trusted, but just that it may be tainted by stakeholders and publication bias. With the ongoing reproducibility crisis, largely due to academia’s publish-or-perish culture that favors positive results, such concerns should not be taken lightly.

• - Many scientific results are biased by stakeholders’ influence (e.g. government, pharmaceutical industry)
• - Most scientists will not want to publish results that will not reflect upon them favorably
• + Most scientists want to report their results fairly.
• + People do biomedical research for the benefit of humanity, not money or fame.

A higher “trust in science motives” score is strongly associated with a higher “support for pandemic response” score (r = 0.72, p < 0.00001).

Distrust in Common Citizens’ Scientific Reasoning

It would not be fair to accuse reopening supporters of being “anti-science” when they cite science themselves as evidence against lockdowns and masks. What they disbelieve is that a claim has better evidence just because it has greater consensus. In this age of the Internet, people can access data themselves and form their own judgments, which would be especially important if mainstream science is indeed biased. However, it also would not be fair to accuse citizens against reopening of being “sheep” who naively follow authority; they simply believe consensus views are more likely, and understand that most people lack the expertise to interpret complex issues appropriately.

• - Anyone can search for themselves and form an informed opinion on scientific issues.
• - Citizens should not uncritically embrace an idea just because the majority of scientists believe it.
• + Only scientists with relevant expertise should contribute to scientific debates.
• + Most people do not have the scientific background to judge the research for themselves, so they should rely on expert consensus.

A higher “distrust in citizens’ scientific reasoning” score is strongly associated with a higher “support for pandemic response” score (r = 0.65, p < 0.00001).

Science as the Solution to Any Human Problem

When reopening supporters are accused of being “anti-science,” the implication is that science is what drives political decisions. However, such decisions have ideological, social, and economic implications that cannot be measured in scientific laboratories. Policy disagreement is often due to opposing values, and science is limited to questions of the empirical world, not of human values.

• - Some questions cannot be answered by science.
• - Policy decisions are too complex to be settled by science.
• + People would not support certain policies if they truly understood the scientific views on them.
• + Anything we need to know can eventually be revealed by science.

A higher “science as the solution to any problem” score is moderately associated with a higher “support for pandemic response” score (r = 0.42, p < 0.00001). This group of questions has the most balance in responses (most scores close to 0 in both categories); unexpectedly, it is the weakest predictor of pandemic views.

Support for Science in Society

These are the statements that one would most likely consider “pro-science”: positive expressions of science as a source of knowledge and progress. Surely one can disagree with the statements above yet still value a role of science in society.

• + Advancement in scientific research is important for society.
• + People should care about being scientifically informed.
• + Careers in science should be encouraged.
• + It is unfortunate that some people ignore scientific fact.

A higher “support for science in society” score is moderately associated with a higher “support for pandemic response” score (r = 0.49, p < 0.00001). This comes as a surprise; the hypothesis was that this score would not be so strongly associated with pandemic views. In reality, the majority of anti-reopening respondents (61%) show full agreement with all four statements, while the pro-reopening group has a lower average score and broader spread.

The sum of these four scores creates a respondent’s “science as respectable authority” score.

Association with Political Labels

If one’s view on science in society is truly a useful predictor of one’s COVID-19 beliefs, then these differences should not be entirely explained by political differences. To test this, political labels were converted to a quantitative variable (1 = “very left-wing,” 2 = “somewhat left-wing,” 3 = “neutral/centrist” and “unsure/not applicable/prefer not to answer,” 4 = “somewhat right-wing,” and 5 = “very right-wing”).

The Spearman correlation coefficient between political labels and “support for pandemic response” is -0.54 (p < 0.00001), and the correlation between political labels and the “science as respectable authority” score is -0.53 (p < 0.00001). By contrast, the correlation coefficient between “support for pandemic response” and the “science as respectable authority” score is +0.72 (p < 0.00001).

Apparently, the intensity of one’s pandemic beliefs or one’s science beliefs is not entirely based on partisan politics. When one disagrees with the typical partisan view on the pandemic, or when one is neutral or apolitical, one’s views on science tend to match their pandemic views quite predictably.

Section III: Pandemic Priorities

With all the disagreement about the pandemic response, is there anything on which people across the aisle agree? In this exploratory section, respondents were asked,

We have much to learn from responses to this pandemic. To help officials make better decisions in the future, what kinds of information are important to understand better?

and prompted to rate each issue from 1 (“Not important”) to 4 (“Very important”).

How deadly and contagious the virus is

Anti-reopening respondents tend to find this more important (average for “yes” vs. “no”: 3.0 vs. 3.72, p < .00001).

How individual actions can prevent the spread of the virus

Anti-reopening respondents find this more important (2.96 vs. 3.85, p < .00001).

How business restrictions affect the economy

Reopening supporters find this more important (3.77 vs. 3.37, p = .000064). Interestingly, plenty of respondents who disagreed that “Those who support extended quarantines don’t care about how many working people’s livelihoods are suffering” (Section I) marked economic concerns as not very important here.

How quarantine/lockdown/stay-at-home orders affect people’s well-being

In both categories, the majority of respondents found this important. However, the group that finds this more important is pro-reopening (3.86 vs. 3.51, p = .000136). This issue will be explored further in the next survey.

How government actions can prevent the spread of the virus

Anti-reopening respondents find this much more important (2.33 vs. 3.71, p < .00001).

How citizens can receive their basic needs if their source of income is affected

In both categories, the majority of respondents found this important. However, the group that finds this more important is anti-reopening (3.47 vs. 3.78, p = .000672).

How businesses can modify their practices to ensure cleanliness and social distancing

Anti-reopening respondents find this much more important (2.5 vs 3.78, p < .00001).

How schools can continue their instruction

For this issue, there is not a considerable difference between pro- and anti-reopening respondents. Anti-reopening respondents seem only slightly more in favor (3.5 vs. 3.68, p = .047391).

How to ensure hospitals are equipped to handle large numbers of cases

Anti-reopening respondents find this more important (3.32 vs. 3.88, p < .00001).

How to ensure vulnerable populations are protected

Anti-reopening respondents find this more important (3.37 vs. 3.88, p < .00001).

How quarantine/lockdown/stay-at-home orders affect people’s rights/liberties

Reopening supporters find this much more important (3.79 vs. 2.63, p < .00001).

How citizens approve/disapprove of government responses

Reopening supporters find this more important (3.37 vs. 2.8, p = .000076).

How to ensure the public receives accurate information about the pandemic

For this issue, there is not a considerable difference between pro- and anti-reopening respondents. Anti-reopening respondents seem only slightly more in favor (3.73 vs. 3.87, p = .0409)

How to enforce compliance with public health orders

This is the only issue for which the different groups’ response distributions almost look like mirrored versions of each other. Anti-reopening respondents find this much more important than reopening supporters do (1.84 vs. 3.37, p < .00001), although they find it less important than most other issues.

Section III Summary

• The issues with the most similar levels of agreement are “How to ensure the public receives accurate information about the pandemic” (83.3% find “Very important”) and “How schools can continue their instruction” (70% find “Very important”).
• The most important issue to the “end restrictions” group is “How quarantine/lockdown/stay-at-home orders affect people’s well-being,” and the least important issue to this group is “How to enforce compliance with public health orders.”
• The most important issue to the “do not end restrictions” group is tied between “How to ensure hospitals are equipped to handle large numbers of cases” and “How to ensure vulnerable populations are protected,” and the least important issue to this group is “How quarantine/lockdown/stay-at-home orders affect people’s rights/liberties.”
• There are many issues that anti-reopening respondents agree are very important, but pro-reopening respondents do not necessarily find them not important; there is plenty of variation in their views.

Discussion

Overall, one’s view of science as an authority is a strong predictor of one’s support for anti-COVID-19 measures, even stronger than political labels. More specifically, “trust in scientists’ motives” and “distrust in citizens’ scientific judgments” are more strongly associated with one’s pandemic beliefs, but “support for science in society” and “belief in science as solution to any problem” are more weakly associated. While the anti-reopening respondents are more diverse in their political labels and pandemic beliefs, the pro-reopening respondents vary more in how they judge different issues to be important.

Awareness of these differences could help those who disagree on the COVID-19 response better understand one another’s reasoning, which could lead to more thoughtful national dialogue. The causes of these differences, though, remain to be explained. It is possible that the correlations show two-direction (“chicken and egg”) causation: for example, people with low prior trust in scientists’ motives were less likely to trust the pandemic response when it began, and people who disapprove of the pandemic response have now lowered their trust in scientists’ motives as a result.

These findings raise many more questions. One area for further exploration is “how quarantine/lockdown/stay-at-home orders affect people’s well-being,” which 77.8% of respondents judged as “very important.” This will be the focus of the next survey, testing more potential correlations— here is the link!

Thank you to everyone who participated!