INSTITUTIONAL DISTRUST: CATALYST OR CONSEQUENCE OF THE SPREAD OF UNFOUNDED COVID-19 BELIEFS

In the present study, we test two competing but mutually complementary hypotheses about the relationship between endorsement of unfounded beliefs during the COVID-19 pandemic (i.e., conspiracy and pseudoscientific beliefs) and institutional trust. To overcome the correlational nature, we used a 3-wave longitudinal design to examine whether low institutional trust predicts unfounded beliefs or vice versa. The final sample consists of 929 participants with full data sets from all three waves (49.80% women). We used the cross-lagged panel model (CLPM), which is well suited to examine the temporal directionality of the relationship between two variables. The results showed a consistent pattern in terms of trust in experts: the effects of conspiracy and pseudoscientific beliefs predicting distrust in experts were stronger than the reverse pattern. For trust in government, the results showed support for both hypotheses. The study contributed to explaining possible causal relationship between unfounded beliefs and institutional trust, i.e. conspiracy and pseudoscientific beliefs may have directly predicted lower trust in experts and scientific institutions.