The politics of trust
A survey on leadership during the lockdown shows how people’s beliefs can be shifted by fear. Amber-Leigh Woolf reports.
New Zealand has flattened the curve, it has crushed coronavirus, it’s a team of 5 million – and these messages may have helped people get through the lockdown.
When the country woke up to the tightest restrictions in at least 70 years when lockdown began on March 26, a whole new way of life dawned – and the political psyche of the nation during this time has been studied by University of Otago psychologists.
A survey of 5000 respondents has found people submitted to the new rules, even when they may have usually questioned authority.
University of Otago researcher Dr Damian Scarf wanted to know if Covid-19 would affect people’s political beliefs, and how they would evolve as the lockdown relaxed.
The survey included an array of complex political questions measuring what researchers termed Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) – typified by submission to authority, traditional values, and support for a ‘‘tough government’’.
Authoritarianism was typified by three dimensions: submission to authority; traditional values such as ‘‘oldfashioned ways’’ being the best way to live; and aggression, for example: ‘‘we should smash all the negative elements that are causing trouble in our society’’.
Scarf says people widely agreed with concepts such as ‘‘leaders should be obeyed without question’’, and ‘‘young people should not defy authority’’.
‘‘Interestingly, in the current climate, people who strongly support the Labour Party are showing high levels of agreement with the submission to authority dimension.
‘‘In fact, people who strongly support the Labour Party are scoring higher on this measure than people that strongly support the National Party.’’
Scarf says the political shift made sense during the lockdown, when people needed to adhere to strict rules to prevent the spread of Covid-19. ‘‘What will be interesting is whether we see things return to normal once the risk of Covid-19 is low.’’
During the lockdown, Jacinda Ardern’s leadership was hailed far and wide, with overwhelming support for the Government’s measures to eradicate the virus.
Even when the lockdown was extended, support for Labour’s leadership rose from 84 per cent to 87 per cent, according to a survey by Colmar Brunton.
Of the New Zealanders surveyed, 62 per cent said they ‘‘feel a greater sense of national pride than they did before the crisis’’ – up from 47 per cent at the start of April.
Scarf says messages communicated by Ardern were a major contributing factor. ‘‘Our results suggest most New Zealanders view her as being one of ‘us’, doing things for ‘us’, crafting a sense of ‘us’, and bringing ‘us’ together.
‘‘Abiding by the rules is doing something for ‘us’.
‘‘People have a strong belief that New Zealanders can come together and overcome the challenge.’’
The survey also used an Identity Leadership Inventory (ILI) to judge responses.
People responded very positively to all ILI items, demonstrating a view that Ardern was displaying all the traits that make a great leader, Scarf says.
‘‘Also, we find the ILI is associated with people thinking we can eliminate Covid-19 from New Zealand and collective efficacy. Collective efficacy is essentially whether people think New Zealanders can work together and produce positive outcomes.’’
Marc Wilson, of Victoria University’s school of psychology, says New Zealanders gave a ‘‘collective sigh of relief’’ when the Government took full control by lockdown.
The pandemic was a threat to people’s physical health, but was also an example of something that evolution had inefficiently equipped humanity to deal with – an ‘‘invisible, unpredictable, threat’’.
‘‘As a result we feel uncertain about the nature and effective response to that threat, and that is hugely anxiety-provoking.’’
Decisive action by politicians didn’t remove the threat, but did alleviate that anxiety, Wilson says.
‘‘I may not know what the right course of action is, but someone else is making those decisions for me. When we went to level 4 the nation made a collective sigh of relief that the uncertainty was over.’’
The New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study, conducted by Auckland University, has also been studying New Zealanders for the past decade, including through the pandemic.
It includes questions about people’s preference for authority. Trust in scientific and political institutions increased in the weeks after the lockdown, Wilson says.
That also coincided with an increase in patriotism and national unity, as well as a slight decrease in wellbeing.
‘‘Experiments show that everyone, on average, becomes a little more authoritarian under threat.’’
Some people need certainty more than others. ‘‘Research with my friends at Otago has shown that, in New Zealand, older folks are more authoritarian, and that may be because they are more vulnerable to physical threats – the pandemic is a case study threat in this instance.’’
In New Zealand, leadership during the lockdown was in part deferred to likeable, intelligible experts such as director-general of health Ashley Bloomfield, Wilson says.
But for that leadership to be a success, it also required a great deal of trust. ‘‘New Zealand is ranked 4th out of 167 countries on the international democracy index, and that makes it a lot easier for us to accept dramatic directives like ‘stay in your homes for at least the next month’.’’
New Zealand also has a much less individualistic society, compared to with somewhere like the United States.
‘‘Additionally, we have this stereotype of the Kiwi as a stoic,
a pragmatist that can MacGyver it out of a piece of No 8 [wire].
‘‘I think the Government response played to this strength, and encouraged folks to feel that they had a role in charting their own destiny.’’
Wilson expects the ‘‘postlockdown holiday’’ to end, but he does not expect trust in the Government to turn around.
‘‘While we could look at the number of NZ deaths and speculate that Covid-19 isn’t the Bogeyman we were told it is, a look overseas tells us that we’ve come out of this well.’’ New Zealand could be the only, and certainly the first, country to totally eradicate Covid-19.
‘‘This makes it extremely difficult for opposition parties to argue they would have done it better, because it’s about as good as it could possibly have been.’’
However, the economy is about to tank, he says, and he expects the Government to face that reality, rather than pretending it’s not happening.
He notes a short-term increase in patriotism immediately after the lockdown. ‘‘I think this will continue. While economies around the world will tank, few will be able to argue they’ve restricted the loss of life as effectively as we have.’’
New Zealand’s self-esteem will be boosted by the success, he believes. ‘‘Other countries are saying that we ‘crushed’ the curve. Not bad for a little country about as far from the centre of things as you can get.’’
The ‘‘importance of belonging’’ is central to the country’s Covid-19 response. ‘‘The more you feel you belong in a group (in this case, New Zealand) the better the outcomes associated.’’
A recent Stickybeak survey of the global PR industry ranked New Zealand’s response to Covid-19 as the best in the world.
However, Wilson points out that other leaders around the world have experienced the same political bounce as Ardern.
Leaders in Italy, Britain, France and elsewhere all had an initial surge in popularity during the pandemic, despite their differing levels of successes.
In the cases of Angela Merkel in Germany and Moon Jae-In in Korea, decisiveness was a winning factor.
Donald Trump has been a rare example in which approval of his leadership has decreased, Wilson says.
‘‘I think that this is because his administration did not project that consistent and transparent approach to the pandemic – it was inconsistently consistent.
‘‘The shape of the message was strength and control, but the content involved flip-flop after flip-flop, and I suspect this is part of the reason for the decline in support – in times of uncertainty we look to our leaders for certainty, and the US did not get it.’’
People’s health was also linked to their response. Scarf says the survey found people’s fear of Covid-19 was associated with lower wellbeing.
Wilson says research in other countries, such as the US, suggests impacts on mental health have been more severe than in New Zealand.
Clinical psychologist Dougal Sutherland says the Government’s success lay in its appeal to the collective will. That included working together as a ‘‘team of five million’’.
‘‘This sort of approach helps people to focus on a ‘‘greater good’’ rather than individually what they are losing.’’
More than 5000 people have completed the survey, ranging in age from 18 to 99. The average participant’s age is 45.
Respondents have come from across the political spectrum, with a large contingent of both National and Labour supporters.