Conference Agenda

Our way of living has led to an unequivocal increase in the earth's surface temperature of about 1.07°C (IPCC, 2021). Suppose no substantial changes are made so that human activities generate significantly less carbon equivalent emissions. In that case, we will soon exceed 1.5°C of increase and most likely exceed three °C by the end of this century. The more carbon equivalent we emit into the atmosphere, the greater the climate hazards and the risks to ecosystems and human beings. Consequently, "mid- and long-term risks generated by climate change depend on our near-term capacities to mitigate and adapt to climate change" (IPCC, 2022). Contributions to climate change are pretty unequal; the wealthiest have significantly higher carbon footprint than the poorest (Chancel, 2022). In addition, climate change will be a vector of inequality; the poorest capacity to adapt will be restricted. To face this challenge, policies that promote profound change in our lifestyles and adaptations will be needed.

There is a growing literature demonstrating that knowledge, also named prior beliefs, is a determinant of policy support (Kuziemko et al., 2015; Alesina et al., 2018; Fehr et al., 2019; Stantcheva, 2020; Alsan et al., 2020a; Alsan et al., 2020b; Dechezleprêtre et al., 2022). Through experiments, these authors showed that providing information can, to some extent, change beliefs, attitudes, and so-called preferences. Dechezleprêtre et al. 2022 demonstrate that support for more climate action increases when the impacts of three different measures (ban on combustion energy, carbon tax, and green infrastructure programs) are explained. They conclude that support for climate change policy depends on a combination of the perceived effectiveness of the measure, the perceived impact on inequality (on the lowest income), and self-interest.

In this article, we test the effect of a message that provides information on carbon emissions and the capacity to adapt depending on the wealth, on policies ‘support. To do so, we use the experiment that was run in CRONOS-2 French wave. We analyze the effect of providing information on the contributions of the 10% richest and 10% poorest emissions on the support for policies that promote i) the reduction of wealth and income differences, ii) an increase in the money dedicated to climate change, and iii) lastly a policy that will help the poorest to adapt. We make the hypothesis that making these aspects salient can increase policy support (Bordalo et al., 2022). To test the robustness of such information effect, we also test the effect of question order on policy support, making the hypothesis that priming can generate some increase to policy support through the assimilation effect (Strack, 1992; Tourangeau et al., 2000). We find that the message increases the support to help adapt specifically to climate change for the poorest.

Although the debate about the appropriateness of banning or excluding far-right parties from government is intensifying at present (see for example Malkopoulou, 2019), there is hardly any empirical evidence on public opinion on this matter. To address this gap, we recently asked more than 500 Belgian respondents about their views on the ‘cordon sanitaire’ – an agreement between political parties in Belgium to refuse any form of cooperation with the extreme right (i.e., Vlaams Belang) in order to prevent this party from obtaining executive authority. The study involved a follow-up survey (CRONOS-2) of the respondents of the most recent round of the European Social Survey (ESS) from 2020-22. Linking these two data sources not only allows us to map the opinions surrounding the ‘cordon sanitaire’, but also to see how these relate to the socio-demographic and ideological profiles of respondents.

We find that the Belgian public is almost evenly divided on the issue. However, there are significant regional differences in Belgium: in Flanders there appears to be considerably less support for the ‘cordon sanitaire’ than in Wallonia and Brussels. An intuitive explanation is that extreme right ideas enjoy less legitimacy in French-speaking Belgium than in Flanders. In French-speaking Belgium, the extreme right is not only politically isolated but also ignored in the media (i.e. ‘cordon mediatique’). Somewhat surprisingly, the socio-demographic profile of respondents makes little to no contribution to explaining the variation in attitudes. towards the 'cordon sanitaire'.

Because public opinion surrounding the 'cordon sanitaire' cannot simply be reduced to social stratification, it is important to also recognize the ideological embeddedness of the different positions in the debate. The discussion surrounding the legitimacy of the ‘cordon sanitaire’ is not so much a discussion between self-declared proponents and opponents of democracy, but rather about the scope and legitimacy of specific democratic principles. It is a battle between two different views of what democracy essentially means: is the emphasis on popular sovereignty or on the principles of the rule of law? Respondents who adhere to a democratic-procedural interpretation – and therefore attribute political legitimacy to the will of the people – are more inclined to view the ‘cordon sanitaire’ as an unlawful restriction on popular sovereignty imposed by the political elite. Those who attach particular importance to a liberal-substantive interpretation of democracy – and therefore primarily attribute political legitimacy to liberal values and institutions – are, in contrast, more inclined to support the ‘cordon sanitaire’. In addition, we also find that a belief in unrestricted freedom of speech, a tendency towards conspiracy thinking and a right-wing political orientation fuel opposition to the ‘cordon sanitaire’.

Financial well-being (FWB) gain prominence over financial literacy research and policy in recent years (Kamble et al., 2023; Kaur et al., 2021; Wilmarth, 2021), despite no common understanding of how to define, conceptualize, operationalize nor improve it (Riitsalu et al., 2023). Furthermore, current research largely relies on cross-sectional studies conducted in single countries. While there has been an exponential growth of FWB studies both in academic and grey literature, there are merely a few longitudinal assessments of it from single countries (e.g. Italy, Sorgente et al., 2023), and a few multi-country comparisons, with data collected in a single round (Fu, 2020; OECD, 2023; Riitsalu & van Raaij, 2022).

Majority of FWB research assesses it as a unidimensional construct, even if its conceptualization is multi-dimensional (van Raaij et al., 2023). Previous studies have looked into the effects of individual and contextual factors on FWB without distinguishing the components of FWB (Brüggen et al., 2017; García-Mata & Zerón-Félix, 2022), although there have been hints that the routes to the components may differ and that the future component may be explained by the national culture more than the current component of FWB (Riitsalu & van Raaij, 2022)

In 2021, we successfully proposed to the ESS ERI to add FWB measures into the CRONOS-2. We used a shortened version of current money management stress (CMMS) and expected future financial security (EFFS) scales, developed by Netemeyer et al. (2018) and validated in 16 countries (Riitsalu & van Raaij, 2022).

The data was collected online in two waves (2 and 5) of CRONOS-2. The sample included 6,434 participants from 12 European countries in the first wave of the FWB module and 5,765 individuals from 11 countries in the second round.

We compared the one-factorial and two-factorial structure of the FWB and found support for the latter. When testing the two-factorial model, we were able to demonstrate the strong longitudinal measurement invariance. We also found that configural variance was supported in 10 out of 12 countries (excluding Czechia and Austria). Excluding these two countries, we found only weak support for metric invariance, with different factor loadings in Finland and France than in the remaining countries. After releasing these loadings, we achieved partial metric invariance. We obtained neither scalar nor residual invariance across the countries studied.

Our findings highlight the need to distinguish the components of FWB, and consider potentially different structure of this construct across countries. In the further part of our project, we will test whether current money management stress is predicted by individual level indicators while expected future financial security is explained by both individual and contextual factors. and for considering the paths that lead to each of them for being able to effectively support individuals in securing or improving their FWB. This supports the call for a systems approach in related policy (Brown et al., 2024) and the need for developing a financial well-being ecosystem (UNSGSA, 2021) combining the resources of public and private sector, and academia.

The covid-19 crisis caused unprecedented health and economic disruption. The end of the crisis was made possible thank to the adoption of health measures: barrier measures and, above all, vaccination of a large proportion of the population. Numerous authors demonstrate that the acceptance of protective measures, is influenced by trust (Algan et al., 2021; Bargain & Aminjonov, 2020; Barrios et al., 2021; Brodeur et al., 2021; Durante et al., 2021; Engle et al., 2020, Galasso et al., 2022, Umer, 2023). These authors show that in the United States and Italy the reduction of mobility is more significant when the level of trust in their fellow citizens is high. Umer (2023) shows that in the Netherlands trust in people is a better predictor of compliance with preventive measures, i.e., staying at home, than pro social determinants. This horizontal trust is considered a proxy of social capital and is, therefore, seen as a factor likely to foster cooperation. Algan et al., 2021, who consider many European states and address vaccination acceptance, find more contrasted results. They show that, at the individual level, trust in scientists is a more critical driver of vaccination acceptance than trust in others or trust in governments. Galasso et al., 2022 and Kerr et al., 2020 also found that trust in scientists is a determinant of vaccination intentions. Vertical trust is likely to increase the collective and individual benefits that individuals perceive from vaccination campaigns, allowing them to better understand the benefits that vaccination can have on their health, the health system, and the economy. Another dimension influencing the willingness to be vaccinated is the sensitivity to fake news and conspiracy theories (Roozenbeek et al., 2020). Vaccination is presented as an act of deprivation of liberty that would systematically lead to more significant deprivation. Additionally, mistrust toward COVID-19 vaccination and sensitivity to fake news is more frequently observed when people have extreme political positions, mainly far-right positions. This effect of political ideology is particularly pronounced in the United States of America. Engle et al., 2020, demonstrate that states with a higher proportion of Republican voters were less likely to reduce their mobility. Brodeur et al., 2021 demonstrate that, in contrast, Democrat states are more likely to reduce mobility. Gelfand et al., 2022, found that political ideology strongly determines the willingness to wear a mask and that Republicans were less likely to be sensitive to measures that promote masks. Using data from the European Social Survey (ESS) which introduced questions on vaccines in 21 countries (mostly European countries), Backhaus et al., 2023, show that far-right voters are more likely to be vaccine averse. More widely, Van Prooijen et al., 2015 demonstrate that individuals with political extremism positions are more likely to endorse conspiracy beliefs.

In this paper we use CRONOS 2 data to analyze the determinants of attitude towards the respect of protective measures and vaccination with a special focus on trust. By enriching them with their ESS response we analyze the influence of political ideologies and conspiracy indicators.

Target ostracism frequency, that is being excluded and ignored by others, has detrimental effects on individuals’ mental health. For instance, being the target of ostracism predicts depression three years later (Rudert et al., 2021). Other strands of research have connected ostracism with psychiatric symptoms, too (Reinhard et al., 2020). Importantly, depression is highly connected with general anxiety (Jacobson & Newman, 2017), and socially anxious individuals have been shown to recover more slowly from ostracism (Zadro et al., 2006).

Using data from newly fielded modules in CRONOS-2 waves 4 and 5 (mental health, ostracism), we investigate the relationship between target ostracism frequency and mental health; separately for general anxiety and depressive symptoms across 11 European countries. Further, because lower mental health may be associated with withdrawal and isolation, we also investigate whether both general anxiety and depressive symptoms predict the frequency of ostracizing others (i.e., source ostracism). In all models, we add age and gender as control variables.

For target ostracism, we find that stronger general anxiety symptoms are associated with more frequent target ostracism, β = 0.43, 95% Credible Interval (CI) [0.40, 0.46]. Further, we observe that older individuals (β = -0.16, 95% CI [-0.19, -0.13]) report less frequent ostracism, and we find no gender difference in reported ostracism frequency (β = -0.03, 95% CI [-0.09, 0.03]). Similarly, we find that stronger depressive symptoms are associated with more frequent target ostracism, β = 0.46, 95% CI [0.40, 0.46] and both control variables (i.e., age, gender) show similar associations as in the anxiety analyses. These findings corroborate previous findings that mental health and ostracism are strongly connected.

For source ostracism, we find that stronger general anxiety symptoms are associated with ostracizing others more frequently, β = 0.22, 95% CI [0.20, 0.25]. We also observe that older individuals (β = -0.11, 95% CI [-0.13, -0.08]), as well as women compared to men (β = -0.18, 95% CI [-0.23, -0.13]), report ostracizing others less frequently. Likewise, we find that stronger depressive symptoms are associated with ostracizing others more frequently, β = 0.21, 95% CI [0.18, 0.24] and both control variables (i.e., age, gender) show similar associations as in the anxiety analyses. Together, these findings add critical new insights to the understanding of ostracism and mental health in real life, outside the experimental context. Future research may build up on these findings and investigate these findings longitudinally.