Psychological underpinnings of pandemic denial - patterns of disagreement with scientific experts in the German public during the COVID-19 pandemic
Rothmund, T.; Farkhari, F.; Ziemer, C.-T.; Azevedo, F.áv.
Public Understanding of Science 31(4): 437-457
2022
ISSN/ISBN: 1361-6609 PMID: 35135408 Document Number: 209389
We investigated pandemic denial in the general public in Germany after the first wave of COVID-19 in May 2020. Using latent class analysis, we compared patterns of disagreement with claims about (a) the origin, spread, or infectiousness of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and (b) the personal risk from COVID-19 between scientific laypersons (N = 1,575) and scientific experts (N = 128). Two groups in the general public differed distinctively from expert evaluations. The Dismissive (8%) are characterized by low-risk assessment, low compliance with containment measures, and mistrust in politicians. The Doubtful (19%) are characterized by low cognitive reflection, high uncertainty in the distinction between true and false claims, and high social media intake. Our research indicates that pandemic denial cannot be linked to a single and distinct pattern of psychological dispositions but involves different subgroups within the general population that share high COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs and low beliefs in epistemic complexity.