Trust Me, Mask Up: Experimental Evidence on Social Trust and Responsiveness to COVID-19 Mitigation Policies

Researchers aimed to understand the relationship between social trust (and closely related social capital) and compliance with government policy in the context of COVID-19.

Using a survey experiment, researchers exposed participants to information that they hypothesized would impact their levels of general social trust, then measured reported trust and compliance with COVID-19 public health measures. They found support for their hypothesis that social trust could be increased when participants were exposed to information about the high frequency of lost wallets being returned. However, they did not find significant effects of this change in social trust on compliance with public health measures related to COVID-19.

Abstract and Citation

Goldstein, Daniel A. N. and Wiedemann, Johannes, Trust Me, Mask Up: Experimental Evidence on Social Trust and Responsiveness to COVID-19 Mitigation Policies (April 28, 2021). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3835934 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3835934

Abstract: Observational evidence suggests that social trust, i.e., trust in others, and the closely related concept of social capital play a critical role in compliance with government policy, particularly in regards to public responsiveness to measures intended to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus. We use a survey experiment to causally estimate the impact of altering social trust on compliance with a range of policies intended to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. Utilizing an instrumental variable approach, we are able to alter reported social trust, but find null effects in regards to compliance with COVID-19 mitigation measures. We speculate on several explanations for this finding.
Publication Link: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3835934
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