By Kristina Murphy, Harley Williamson, Molly McCarthy & Elise Sargeant
This technical report presents the methodology and findings for the Attitudes to Authority during COVID-19 Wave 2 Survey. The COVID-19 Wave 2 Survey was fielded via Facebook in November 2020, six months after the first wave survey was completed (see Murphy, Williamson, Sargeant, & McCarthy, 2020a). The follow-up COVID-19 Wave 2 Survey sought to gauge participants’ attitudes to authorities and their handling of the COVID-19 pandemic months after the pandemic started in March 2020 and when work and life routines in the states and territories in Australia, with the exception of the state of Victoria, were returning to normality. The COVID-19 Wave 2 Survey enabled change in attitudes from early in the pandemic to be tracked. In addition, and due to increasing traction from conspiracy theories relating to COVID-19, a series of new questions were included in the second wave survey to assess the prevalence of conspiracy beliefs in the Australian population and how these were associated with attitudes toward the authorities.
