Abstract
Opinion polls regarding policies designed to tackle COVID-19 have shown public support has remained high throughout the first year of the pandemic in most places around the world. However, there is a risk that headline support over-simplifies people's views. We carried out a two-wave survey with six-month interval on a public sample (N = 212) in the UK, examining the factors that underpin lockdown policy support. We find that the majority of people support most public health measures introduced, but that they also see significant side effects of these policies, and that they consider many of these side effects as unacceptable in a cost-benefit analysis. We also find that people judged the threat of COVID-19 via the magnitude of the policy response, and that they do not use their perception of the personal threat to themselves or close others to guide their support for policy. Polling data only offer one simple perspective and do not illustrate the ambivalence many people feel around lockdown policies. There is also a meaningful risk of public opinion and government policy forming a symbiotic relationship, which impacts upon how effectively such policies are implemented both now, and in relation to future threats.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 210678 |
| Journal | Royal Society Open Science |
| Volume | 8 |
| Issue number | 7 |
| Early online date | 7 Jul 2021 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 31 Jul 2021 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:Ethics. Ethics approval was granted by Cardiff University Ethics Committee (ref: EC.20.05.12.6034R) before data collection commenced. Informed consent was provided at the start of the study by all participants. Participants were debriefed and thanked at the end of each wave. Data accessibility. The raw and modified datasets, complete sets of items used in both phases and the syntax files used for analyses are available (on OSF) at: https://osf.io/7ph4f/?view_only=27c3e7875ae7483d920910abb6aaca25. The study was not preregistered. The data are provided in electronic supplementary material [37]. Authors’ contributions. C.M.G.F.: literature search, study design, study coding, data collection, data analysis, data interpretation, writing. L.W.: literature search, study design, data interpretation, writing. P.H.P.H.: data analysis, data interpretation, writing. G.H.: literature search, study design, data interpretation, writing. Competing interests. Throughout the paper’s submission and editorial process Prof. G.H. was a member of the Royal Society Open Science Editorial Board. He had no involvement in the consideration of the manuscript for publication. Prof. Nick Pearce acted on this paper as Subject Editor for Science, Society and Policy. He is based at the University of Bath, as is one of the authors of the paper, but Prof. Pearce was not otherwise involved in the research. The other authors declare no conflicts of interest. Funding. This research was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council.
Funding
Ethics. Ethics approval was granted by Cardiff University Ethics Committee (ref: EC.20.05.12.6034R) before data collection commenced. Informed consent was provided at the start of the study by all participants. Participants were debriefed and thanked at the end of each wave. Data accessibility. The raw and modified datasets, complete sets of items used in both phases and the syntax files used for analyses are available (on OSF) at: https://osf.io/7ph4f/?view_only=27c3e7875ae7483d920910abb6aaca25. The study was not preregistered. The data are provided in electronic supplementary material [37]. Authors’ contributions. C.M.G.F.: literature search, study design, study coding, data collection, data analysis, data interpretation, writing. L.W.: literature search, study design, data interpretation, writing. P.H.P.H.: data analysis, data interpretation, writing. G.H.: literature search, study design, data interpretation, writing. Competing interests. Throughout the paper’s submission and editorial process Prof. G.H. was a member of the Royal Society Open Science Editorial Board. He had no involvement in the consideration of the manuscript for publication. Prof. Nick Pearce acted on this paper as Subject Editor for Science, Society and Policy. He is based at the University of Bath, as is one of the authors of the paper, but Prof. Pearce was not otherwise involved in the research. The other authors declare no conflicts of interest. Funding. This research was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council.
Keywords
- attitude formation
- COVID-19
- policy
- polling data
- public support
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General
