Enforcement may crowd out voluntary support for COVID-19 policies, especially where trust in government is weak and in a liberal society

Significance This paper makes three contributions. First, it provides insights from Germany on people’s agreement with policy choices that all countries face in addressing the COVID-19 pandemic. My findings point to dimensions relevant for policy makers when deciding between voluntary as opposed to enforced measures. These insights include the essential role of trust in government. Second, the paper contributes to the small but important literature on the intersection of policy design, state capacities, and the interplay of obedience and voluntary compliance. Third, my finding that even 30 y after reunification those who have experienced state coercion in East Germany are less control-averse concerning anti–COVID-19 measures than West Germans contributes to the literature on endogenous preferences and comparative cultural studies.

Tables S1 to S7 Table S1. Number of participants in the survey, dropouts and exclusion criteria Table S2. Attempt to classify the anti-Covid-19 measures along various dimensions Table S3. Explanation of all independent variables used in the regressions

Attitudes to different measures
The questions on the following pages refer to measures to slow down the spread of the corona epidemic.
For each measure, we ask you to indicate to what extent you agree with it if it is introduced by the government voluntarily or compulsorily.

[Limit contacts]
To prevent infection, people should avoid meeting friends, relatives and colleagues as far as possible.
To what extent do you agree to limit your social contacts if ... … contact restrictions are strongly recommended by the government, but remain voluntary? … contact restrictions are made mandatory and checked by the government? (Answers to all questions are provided on a 5 point Likert scale, ranging from 0 "not agree at all" to 4 "fully agree".)

[Limit travelling]
In order to avoid infection, one should preferably stay at home and also not travel.
To what extent do you agree to limit your travelling if ... ... travel restrictions are strongly recommended by the government but remain voluntary? ... travel restrictions are imposed and checked by the government?

[Wear a mask]
There has been a long discussion about wearing masks in public where the minimum distance of 1.5m cannot be maintained.
To what extent do you agree to wear a mask yourself if ... … wearing masks is strongly recommended by the government but remains voluntary? … wearing masks is made mandatory and checked by the government?

[Use tracing app]
We are currently discussing an app that accesses the movement and contact data of mobile phones to inform users anonymously about a possible infection. This app is more useful the more people use it.
To what extent do you agree to use this app yourself if ... … using the app is strongly recommended by the government but remains voluntary? … using the app is made mandatory and checked by the government?

[Get vaccinated]
If there is an approved vaccine against the coronavirus: To what extent do you agree to be inoculated yourself if ... … vaccination is strongly recommended by the government but remains voluntary? … vaccination is made mandatory and checked by the government? -Historical TV address of Chancellor Merkel. In an urgent appeal, she calls on the population to act in solidarity and responsibility. "Social contacts must be minimized." "This is serious. Take it seriously, too." -EU imposes entry ban. -Federal and state governments agree on strict restrictions on exit and contact. Citizens may only be in public areas with a maximum of one person who does not live in the same household and must keep at least 1.5m distance from others. -Restaurants and pubs may only offer take-away food. Hairdressers must close.

27
March. Discussion about pros and cons of wearing face masks.
28 March. Infection Protection Act comes into force (i.e., the government is entitled to restrict fundamental rights). 31 March. The city of Jena introduces mandatory mask-wearing in public areas. Other cities are more skeptical.
-The nationwide contact restrictions are extended until 19 April. People should generally refrain from private travel and visits -including those by relatives. -130 scientists and entrepreneurs present a concept for a corona-app "PEPP-PT". With this concept, countries should be able to build data protection-friendly apps across Europe that work across borders.
-A total of 37 million protective masks have arrived in Germany.
-Drosten reports about a new Science publication on the benefits of corona-apps (12) in his podcast.
6 April. Corona-app ready for use in the next days or weeks. Such a tracing app is part of the exit strategy of the federal government in order to gradually loosen the contact bans and other restrictions.
-The severe restrictions on contact will be extended until 3 May.
-Stepwise reopening of schools on May 4.
-Shops with a sales area of up to 800m 2 will be allowed to reopen from 20 April, subject to conditions relating to hygiene, access control and queuing. -Restaurants, bars and pubs are to remain closed as before.
-Major events will also remain prohibited until at least 31 August.
16 April. Government recommends to wear community masks when shopping and in public transport.  26 April.
-Minister of Health Spahn pleads for corona app, which should be installed on as many mobile phones as possible. It should help to track when infected people meet others and warn these contact persons. -The German government has made an important decision on the direction of its planned corona warning app. It is moving towards decentralized storage of user data. According to experts, this solution is better for data protection than a centralized data reconciliation. It also clears the way for linking the apps with the smartphone systems of Apple and Google. This should make the apps more efficient and secure.  -Community worship services should be allowed again with rules on distance and hygiene.
-Schools and daycare centers: no changes, federal and state governments want to discuss this in more detail on 6 May. -Restaurants, hotels and cafés will remain closed.
-No changes for the time being with respect to store openings.
-Some federal states relax some measures, contrary to the federal and state agreements from 30 April. -Demonstrations against the corona restrictions.

May. RKI head Lothar Wieler pleads for different relaxations of the corona measures in Germany
depending on the location. The decisive factor should be the occurrence of infections.

May. The federal and state governments have agreed on further relaxations, though contact restrictions remain largely in place:
-Families from two different households can meet.
-Hotels and restaurants: gradual reopening, subject to hygiene and distancing conditions.
-Shops: all shops can open but have to meet hygiene and distancing requirements. Wearing masks is mandatory. -Corona warning app: double voluntariness is emphasized concerning its use and data transfer. A concrete date for the introduction of the app is still not mentioned. -Districts with more than 50 infections per 100,000 inhabitants within the last 7 days will have to return to stricter restrictions immediately.

May.
Protests among politicians against the extension of border controls by Federal Interior Minister Seehofer.

May.
-Three districts already break the negotiated upper limit for new infections.
-Growing resistance against the corona measures. Critics say that the restrictions of basic rights are too severe. Many even fear a compulsory vaccination -for a corona vaccine that does not yet exist.

Validity of the survey results
The fact that my survey responses map the actual take-up of the app in Germany suggests substantial validity. There is further evidence in support of the validity of the survey findings. In the following, I first report on neuropsychological evidence showing that control aversion is a stable psychological phenomenon. Then I show that important determinants of control aversion identified in this survey are consistent with other empirical studies.
Neuropsychological evidence has shown that the heterogeneity in control aversion across people is reflected in systematic differences of the stable functional brain organization. A neural trait underlying control-averse behavior has been identified, i.e., a task-independent neural measurement that is stable across time, similar to a neural fingerprint (1). My discussions on types in the article and the principal component analyses suggesting fairly correlated responses to enforcement across policy interventions (see figures S4 and S5 for details) are in line with this observation.
Important determinants of control aversion identified in this survey have also been found in an incentivized online experiment where control aversion was studied in a very abstract principal-agent setting (2). First, the survey finding that those raised in East Germany under communist rule are less averse to enforcement regarding anti-covid-19 policies than West Germans of the same generation is well in line with behavior in this online experiment. That experiment also finds convergence of East-West differences in younger generations.        Fig. 3 of the article are highlighted in dark blue.

Variable Description and remarks Survey question Distribution
East_childhood Dummy variable taking the value one if a person spent her or his childhood in a federal state of East Germany. It takes the value zero for West Germany and is missing otherwise.
In which federal state did you spend most of your childhood?

Age
In years at the time of the survey, computed from year of birth.

East_childhood + East_childhood*Age
Captures "the extent of the impact of East Germany (communism)". Results from table S4 are shown in Fig. 3A (e).

Born<1970
Dummy variable taking the value one for people born before 1970 and zero for people born in 1970 or later.

East_childhood + East_childhood*Born<1970
Refers to older East (compared to older West) Germans who were born before 1970. Results from table S5 are shown in Fig. 3B.

Trust_gov
Inverse of the results from table S4 are shown in Fig. 3A (a).
Here you can now see a number of public bodies and institutions. How much confidence do you generally have in them? Federal government Experts from science Media (7-point Likert scale ranging from "no confidence at all" to "a great deal of confidence")

Cov19_truth_gov
Treated as a continuous measure by assigning values from 1 to 5 to the response categories.
Inverse of the results from table S4 are shown in Fig. 3A   Note: The linear combination "East_childhood + East_childhood * Age" refers to "the extent of the impact of East Germany" in Fig. 3A (e).
Other predictors in addition to those discussed in the paper perform as follows: (i) control aversion largely increases over the 10 days of the survey, which was at a time when measures were relaxed; (ii) females are less control averse than males concerning apps and masks; (iii) high (compared to low) education predicts less control aversion concerning apps and more control aversion with respect to limitations on travel; (iv) trust in science reduces control aversion concerning vaccination; (v) trust in the media reduces control aversion; (vi) people living alone are more control averse concerning the app, vaccination, and contact limitations; (vii) more religious people are somewhat less control averse, particularly concerning the use of the app; and (ix) none of the variables on the numbers of registered Covid-19 infections or their decline, political orientation, household income, living in a rural or urban area, or having voted in the previous national election (as a proxy for civicness) has a meaningful impact on control aversion.