> Fourth, we document a gradual but continuous decrease in respondents’ overall willingness to sacrifice rights and freedom, throughout March to mid-June of 2020 ... Such declines are
accompanied by a decrease in expressed worries on health and economic conditions
I wonder if this is simply because there is a mismatch between what people are being told and what people are observing with their own eyes.
If, instead of covid, it were a plague with 50% death rate... I doubt people would be having as much "lockdown fatigue" since they would literally see the bodies piling up in their communities. Instead you have a disease that only mildly affects the majority, putting only small minorities in real danger, which doesn't jive with the "sky is falling" stories the media/government peddles.
One parallel to this finding would be climate change, of course. There's a danger in preaching that the sky is falling in that if people can't see the sky falling with their own eyes, they are going to get "climate fatigue" followed by "a decrease in expressed worries on [climate] conditions".
I wonder if this is simply because there is a mismatch between what people are being told and what people are observing with their own eyes.
If, instead of covid, it were a plague with 50% death rate... I doubt people would be having as much "lockdown fatigue" since they would literally see the bodies piling up in their communities. Instead you have a disease that only mildly affects the majority, putting only small minorities in real danger, which doesn't jive with the "sky is falling" stories the media/government peddles.
One parallel to this finding would be climate change, of course. There's a danger in preaching that the sky is falling in that if people can't see the sky falling with their own eyes, they are going to get "climate fatigue" followed by "a decrease in expressed worries on [climate] conditions".