Climate scepticism teaches us about COVID-19 scepticism

Social psychological factors that explain science scepticism with regard to climate change and vaccinations also provide insights into mistrust surrounding COVID-19, according to social psychologists Bastiaan Rutjens (UvA), Sander van der Linden (University of Cambridge) and Romy van der Lee (VU University). They therefore mapped out research into these factors and identified lessons for COVID-19. 'Political ideology and affiliation seem particularly relevant when trying to understand and study responses to the current COVID-19 pandemic.' Although confidence in science is still relatively high in many countries, science scepticism seems to be on the rise. This is worrying, as systematic rejection of the empirical evidence that science provides and the methods used for this can have far-reaching consequences for public health, the economy and the environment. The growing mistrust does not apply to science in general, however, but to certain controversial topics on which public opinion is strongly divided. These already included climate change, vaccination and genetic modification, and COVID-19 has now joined the list. COVID-19 is not going to disappear any time soon, if ever. To gain a better understanding of the sociopsychological background of COVID-19-related science scepticism, social psychologists Bastiaan Rutjens (University of Amsterdam), Sander van der Linden (University of Cambridge) and Romy van der Lee (VU University) revisited what we know about the social psychology behind climate and vaccination scepticism and drew parallels with COVID-19. Political ideology and mistrust