Anti-intellectualism and the mass public’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic

Anti-intellectualism (the generalized distrust of experts and intellectuals) is an important concept in explaining the public’s engagement with advice from scientists experts. We ask whether it has shaped mass response to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). provide evidence a consistent connection between anti-intellectualism COVID-19 risk perceptions, social distancing, mask usage, misperceptions information acquisition using representative survey 27,615 Canadians conducted March July 2020. exploit panel component our design (N = 4,910) strongly link within-respondent change usage. Finally, we experimental anti-intellectualism’s importance search behaviour two conjoint studies ~ 2,500) that show preferences for news dissipate among respondents higher levels anti-intellectual sentiment. poses fundamental challenge maintaining increasing public compliance expert-guided health directives. Merkley Loewen find (distrust linked (mis)perceptions, directives data Canada.