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Science-related populism declining during the COVID-19 pandemic: A panel survey of the Swiss population before and after the Coronavirus outbreak

In many countries, the COVID-19 pandemic led to increased public support for societal institutions including science, a phenomenon described as “rally-round-the-flag” dynamic. However, it is unclear if this dynamic has also reduced public resentment toward science such as science-related populist at...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Mede, Niels G., Schäfer, Mike S.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: SAGE Publications 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8814940/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34758659
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/09636625211056871
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author Mede, Niels G.
Schäfer, Mike S.
author_facet Mede, Niels G.
Schäfer, Mike S.
author_sort Mede, Niels G.
collection PubMed
description In many countries, the COVID-19 pandemic led to increased public support for societal institutions including science, a phenomenon described as “rally-round-the-flag” dynamic. However, it is unclear if this dynamic has also reduced public resentment toward science such as science-related populist attitudes, that is, the preference of people’s common sense over allegedly elitist scientific knowledge. We test this, relying on individual-level data from panel surveys before and during the pandemic in Switzerland. Results show that science-related populist attitudes decreased after the pandemic started. The decrease was more pronounced among people who had been strong supporters of science-related populism prior to the pandemic, but otherwise spread equally across different sociodemographic and attitudinal segments of the Swiss population. This shows that the Coronavirus outbreak has the potential to undermine persistent (populist) resentments toward science and its epistemology among the general population.
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spelling pubmed-88149402022-02-05 Science-related populism declining during the COVID-19 pandemic: A panel survey of the Swiss population before and after the Coronavirus outbreak Mede, Niels G. Schäfer, Mike S. Public Underst Sci Articles In many countries, the COVID-19 pandemic led to increased public support for societal institutions including science, a phenomenon described as “rally-round-the-flag” dynamic. However, it is unclear if this dynamic has also reduced public resentment toward science such as science-related populist attitudes, that is, the preference of people’s common sense over allegedly elitist scientific knowledge. We test this, relying on individual-level data from panel surveys before and during the pandemic in Switzerland. Results show that science-related populist attitudes decreased after the pandemic started. The decrease was more pronounced among people who had been strong supporters of science-related populism prior to the pandemic, but otherwise spread equally across different sociodemographic and attitudinal segments of the Swiss population. This shows that the Coronavirus outbreak has the potential to undermine persistent (populist) resentments toward science and its epistemology among the general population. SAGE Publications 2021-11-10 2022-02 /pmc/articles/PMC8814940/ /pubmed/34758659 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/09636625211056871 Text en © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
spellingShingle Articles
Mede, Niels G.
Schäfer, Mike S.
Science-related populism declining during the COVID-19 pandemic: A panel survey of the Swiss population before and after the Coronavirus outbreak
title Science-related populism declining during the COVID-19 pandemic: A panel survey of the Swiss population before and after the Coronavirus outbreak
title_full Science-related populism declining during the COVID-19 pandemic: A panel survey of the Swiss population before and after the Coronavirus outbreak
title_fullStr Science-related populism declining during the COVID-19 pandemic: A panel survey of the Swiss population before and after the Coronavirus outbreak
title_full_unstemmed Science-related populism declining during the COVID-19 pandemic: A panel survey of the Swiss population before and after the Coronavirus outbreak
title_short Science-related populism declining during the COVID-19 pandemic: A panel survey of the Swiss population before and after the Coronavirus outbreak
title_sort science-related populism declining during the covid-19 pandemic: a panel survey of the swiss population before and after the coronavirus outbreak
topic Articles
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8814940/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34758659
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/09636625211056871
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