Effects of cooperative and uncooperative narratives on trust during the COVID-19 pandemic: Experimental evidence

• Published in: Journal of behavioral and experimental economics 2024-10, Vol.112, p.102246, Article 102246
• Main Authors: Galdikiene, Laura, Jaraite, Jurate, Kajackaite, Agne
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: COVID-19 pandemic; Health attitudes; Narratives; Social norms; Trust game; Vaccines
• ISSN: 2214-8043
• DOI: 10.1016/j.socec.2024.102246

•Experimental subjects are exposed to norm-based narratives and play trust game.•Neither uncooperative, nor cooperative narratives have an effect on trust behavior.•COVID-19 prime does not affect trust levels.•Exposure to uncooperative narrative raises concerns about health emergency.•Uncooperative narrative makes people to be more in favor of vaccination. To help contain the COVID-19 pandemic, many policymakers and health experts and the media have promoted responsible health behavior by using public narratives highlighting uncooperative behavior, including the lack of social distancing and resistance to various pandemic restrictions and COVID-19 vaccination. However, whether these uncooperative narratives may have detrimental consequences on trust is unclear. Hence, we conducted an online experiment to explore how the exposure to uncooperative and cooperative pandemic narratives affects people's trust in each other. We hypothesized that providing individuals with narratives depicting behaviors that violate (uncooperative narratives) and support pandemic social norms (cooperative narratives) would decrease and increase their trust in others, respectively. We showed that neither of the narratives had any effect on trust.