Good news reduces trust in government and its efficacy: The case of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine announcement.

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  • Additional Information
    • Source:
      Publisher: Public Library of Science Country of Publication: United States NLM ID: 101285081 Publication Model: eCollection Cited Medium: Internet ISSN: 1932-6203 (Electronic) Linking ISSN: 19326203 NLM ISO Abbreviation: PLoS One Subsets: MEDLINE
    • Publication Information:
      Original Publication: San Francisco, CA : Public Library of Science
    • Subject Terms:
      Trust*; BNT162 Vaccine/*administration & dosage ; COVID-19/*prevention & control; COVID-19/virology ; Government ; Humans ; Newspapers as Topic ; SARS-CoV-2/isolation & purification ; Surveys and Questionnaires ; United Kingdom ; United States
    • Abstract:
      The announcement of Pfizer/BioNTech's COVID-19 vaccine success on November 9, 2020 led to a global stock market surge. But how did the general public respond to such good news? We leverage the unexpected vaccine announcement to assess the effect of good news on citizens' government evaluations, anxiety, beliefs and elicited behaviors in the US and the UK. While most outcomes were unaffected by the news, trust in government and elected politicians (and their competency) saw a significant decline in both countries. As the news did not concern the governments, and the governments did not have time to act on the news, our results suggest that the decline of trust is more likely explained by the psychological impact of good news on reasoning style. In particular, we suggest two possible styles of reasoning that might explain our results: a form of motivated reasoning and a reasoning heuristic of relative comparison.
      Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
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    • Accession Number:
      N38TVC63NU (BNT162 Vaccine)
    • Publication Date:
      Date Created: 20211209 Date Completed: 20211217 Latest Revision: 20211217
    • Publication Date:
      20231215
    • Accession Number:
      PMC8659308
    • Accession Number:
      10.1371/journal.pone.0260216
    • Accession Number:
      34882693