Introduction

The recent COVID-19 pandemic was a fertile ground for the circulation of the most diverse theories about the origin of the virus (Hartman et al. 2021; Vezzoni et al. 2022). Early on, scientific reports raised the theory of a “natural origin”; in particular, they referenced zoonotic transmission (i.e., from wild animals to humans) as the most likely explanation (Zhou et al. 2020). Subsequent studies reinforced this line of explanation (Pekar et al. 2022). However, other types of theories soon appeared on social media: the virus had been intentionally created by a government or company, it accidentally leaked from a virology research lab, or even there was no real virus.

So-called conspiracy theories have attracted the attention of numerous studies in recent years. A conspiracy theorist is someone who is prima facie willing to believe in those theories (Cassam 2019). Some individuals are generally assumed to be prone to conspiratorial thinking (Uscinski et al. 2016). The question is, what motivates that tendency? Some authors argue that the adoption of these theories is due to psychological reasons, such as anxiety or paranoia (Grzesiak-Feldman 2013); as a problem of biases in knowledge (Pytlik et al. 2020); or directly as a problem of irrationality (Coady 2007; Teovanovic et al. 2021). According to certain psychological approaches, some individuals possess personality traits that make them more intuitive, while others tend to be more reflective (Evans and Stanovich 2013; Epstein, 2016). In addition, explanations that rely on the psychological attributes of individuals are closely related to the question of accessing and processing information (Swami et al. 2014; Kantorowicz-Reznichenko et al. 2022; Lazarević et al. 2021). In this regard, the “correct” access to information is precisely a frequent explanation for the problem of conspiracy theories (Mian and Khan 2020; Islam et al. 2020). Those approaches, however, tend to focus more on the individual as an autonomous unit than on sociocultural conditions. Although some authors suggest that socialization is probably what affects conspiratorial thinking the most (Uscinski and Parent 2014), the analysis of cultural patterns that make up styles of thought and that underlie conspiratorial or non-conspiratorial attitudes is not usually explored.

Ultimately, the question about the different attitudes towards the pandemic -and towards the public perception of scientific issues in general- can be answered from two opposite approaches: as a problem of top-down communication of “correct information” or the result of a complex cultural background. The first approach is usually referred to as the deficit model and traditionally advocates for scientific alphabetization campaigns or changes in science communication, for it is based on the idea that strong opposition to science and technological affairs is due to an overall ignorance of scientific matters. This approach has a long history, and despite the criticism and rejection received within Science Communication and Public Understanding of Science studies, there is a recurrent tendency to insist on its assumptions (Gross 1994; Cortassa 2016), and indeed is still a very active approach in studies of attitudes towards pandemic (Fonseca et al. 2023), and in general those with less positive attitudes toward the social sciences are more prone to adhere to the knowledge deficit model (Simis et al. 2016). The deficit model has been criticized because it ignores the role of social issues (such as moral or political beliefs) in shaping an attitude (Evans and Durant 1995), because it fails to explain why a similar amount of scientific information can lead to opposing attitudes (Peters Peters 2000), and because more information hardly ever changes already established attitudes (Collins and Evans 2002; Ishiyama et al. 2012; Marks 2016). On the contrary, the cultural approach involves a more complex idea of society, which, outside social sciences, is sometimes simplified. The cultural approach considers that public attitudes to scientific issues are shaped by general social frameworks such as trust, credibility, concerns, or interests, and argues that often “correct information” or “good science” are not unambiguous but rather an object of dispute itself among opposite attitudes (Irwin 1994; Irwin and Michael 2003; Wynne 1991, 1995, 2003). Trust analysis has recently been applied to vaccines (Larson et al. 2018; Freiman 2023) and pandemic attitudes (á Rogvi and Hoeyer 2023; Lazarus et al. 2021). Our study involves the cultural tradition of explaining how a social context shapes knowledge and attitudes toward it.

In this article, we seek to understand the styles of thought that underlie different attitudes towards the pandemic. To that end, we carried out a quantitative analysis of the attitudes towards the pandemic in the Argentine population, which are explained through a cultural theory of expertise, accounting for three different styles of thought.

Cultural theory of expertise

The sociology of knowledge made the characterization of styles of thought a central task. Mannheim argued that individual attitudes are conditioned by how a given social group sees the world. Among some of the authors that have used the notion of styles of thought are C. Wright Mills, Ludwik Fleck, Jonathan Harwood, Ian Hacking, among others. But in addition to showing the diversity of ways of thinking that can coexist, the general interest that runs through the notion of styles of thought is to find the cultural patterns that underlie the individual’s intellectual expressions. The existence of different styles of thought implies that each style is manifested by a community and involves a particular way of making sense of reality through its own criteria of validity (Pellegrini 2019a, 2023).

Douglas and Wildavsky placed risk perception at the center of what they called their cultural theory, assuring that individuals’ perceptions of risk reflect and reinforce their commitments to visions of how society should be organized (Douglas and Wildavsky 1982). In that sense, risk perception will vary systematically according to individuals’ preferences for different cultural worldviews (Wildavsky and Dake 1990; Chauvin 2018). Cultural theory, as outlined by Douglas, considers that individual choices are made within a cultural framework, and those choices constitute an act of adherence to a lifestyle and an act of protest against others: “The idea is that in all their behaviour persons are continuously engaged in trying to realize an ideal form of community life and trying to persuade one another to make it actual” (Douglas 1994: 36). In this sense, individual choices are not considered random or isolated: within each cultural type, there is a tendency to prefer some things over others, to adopt some positions and reject others. Thus, Douglas maintains that the preference for spiritual medicine cannot be explained by a simple demographic factor or a political position but by a deeper framework of values that make up the cultural tendency. Characterizing the cultural types would serve, then, to understand the preferences adopted by individuals.

The approaches that are inspired by the cultural theory of Mary Douglas maintain that the natural world is not external to the social, that is, the environmental crisis is, for example, simultaneously and unavoidably a crisis of our worldviews and social institutions (Irwin 1995; Schwarz and Thompson 1990). According to cultural theory, the cultural roots of the styles of thought about the pandemic can be identified and analyzed as well as the basic assumptions that underlie the arguments and positions in the debates.

We consider that the fundamental myth underlying many current public debates lies in the concept of expertise. More specifically, we maintain that the final argument of the different styles of thought when discussing issues such as the pandemic, vaccines, and others, can be identified based on the way they conceive expertise.

There are different ways to understand expertise. Some perspectives define it on the basis of a certain amount of knowledge, others understand it as an attribution of legitimacy, and there are those who think of it as a gradient of positions that articulate tacit and explicit knowledge. It is not our interest here to adopt a definition of expertise but rather to understand the ways it is thought.

Expertise involves knowledge –or the legitimacy of knowledge- and the ability as to what to do with that knowledge –or with that attribution of knowledge. Expertise has currently become a highly divergent phenomenon, for along with those who recognize typical experts, such as scientists, there are others who call for alternative forms of expertise. On the one hand, there are individuals who recognize experts as having knowledge that they themselves lack; on the other hand, there are those suspicious of experts who believe they have the ability to be or become experts in almost any subject, relying on the Internet and social networks as tools with which they believe that anyone can be an expert (Collins 2014; Nichols 2017; Lynch 2019).

Our cultural theory of expertise proposes to distinguish styles of thought according to where people locate their knowledge authority. As we will show, this explains the close correlation between these styles of thought and the respondents’ preferences regarding various topics.

Methodology

Two questionnaires were designed, pre-tested (cognitively and online), and applied to Argentine citizens in general. The first survey (n = 5990) was carried out online from July 31 to August 11, 2021, and participants were recruited through advertisements on Facebook and Instagram. It had national coverage, including both urban and rural areas, trying as well to guarantee representativeness by age, gender, education, and political preferences. The second survey (n = 1943), complementary to the first, was carried out online from August 15 to August 28, 2021, by invitation via email to people who had answered the first survey.

This study will show the correlation between beliefs about the origin of the virus and other attitudes based on the answers to both surveys, which resulted in three distinct profiles. Attitudes surveyed were those concerning trust in institutions, trust in experts, and attitudes toward science, vaccines, and restriction measures. Ideology and the following sociodemographic characteristics were also evaluated: age, highest level of education and area of residence. The chi-squared test (χ2) was used to assess associations between categorical variables. Statistical significance was considered for p < 0.050. Cramer’s V was employed to evaluate the strength of associations between the analyzed variables. We found three response profiles, with a strong correlation between the belief about the origin of the virus and other responses (Cramer’s V greater than 0.25), which allowed us to analyze three styles of thought about the pandemic. Also, for those variables that showed a significant association, we have included charts in the Results section, showing their distribution based on the belief in the virus origin. Cramer’s V values and standardized residuals can be found in the Appendix.

Results

In this section, we analyze the beliefs about the origin of the pandemic and their correlations with vaccine representations, trust in experts, and ideological profile. We found that the associations between the belief about the origin of the virus and analyzed attitudes about the pandemic were strong (Cramer’s V greater than 0.25).

Beliefs about the origin of the pandemic

The surveys show that the population is divided into three extremely even groups with respect to beliefs about the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus: one-third of the population attributes it to a natural phenomenon, another third to an accidental laboratory escape, and the final third to an intentional release (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1: Beliefs about the origin of the pandemic.
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Source: National online survey, Argentina, August 2021, 5990 cases.

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The category “natural origin” groups those who responded that the virus was a phenomenon linked to zoonosis, or the result of advances in the agricultural frontier. Among the promoters of the first theory are the WHO and scientific experts. The second explanation is not necessarily opposed to the first, although it could reflect a bigger environmental concern. Also, these are the least anthropocentric explanations of the pandemic, and for the purposes of this analysis, we include both under the same style of thought.

The category “intentional release” groups those who responded that the virus was released on purpose and those who believe that the virus does not really exist. This last belief is extremely marginal, corresponding to 1.8% of all respondents (n = 104). The idea that the virus is not real can be considered another expression of the belief that the pandemic is a conspiracy with ignominious ends. In fact, the category “intentional release” reflects the most conspiratorial trend, the belief that the pandemic was no other than an attempt by concentrated powers to secretly try to manipulate people by instilling fear, which was more real than the virus itself.

The “accidental escape” category groups those who responded that the virus originated from an unintentional lab leak. This assumption that spread in social media was not part of the explanation offered by the scientific community and international organizations. Interestingly, it is one that includes some anthropocentrism -for it places human manipulation and not nature as the alleged responsible-, but it does not fall into conspiratorial explanations -the escape is attributed to an accident, not intention-. In a way, we could say it lies halfway between the two previous explanations.

These three categories will reflect the three styles of thought characterized in this work. That is, people who favor one of these explanations, in turn, respond differently to the other two groups on certain key questions. Our study, in what follows, consists of analyzing these correlations. The distribution of preferences among the population is not of particular interest to this study; rather, our focus is to characterize the internal consistency of styles of thought. We included Fig. 1 to show that none of the styles of thought considered are statistically insignificant. Not only are they not marginal, but they represent an almost exact rate of the population, dividing it into thirds. This anticipates that none of the styles of thought here is hegemonic but that society is fragmented and strained by the coexistence of these ways of thinking.

Vaccine representations

Debates about vaccines recurrently take the public scene, involving anti-vaccine movements, vaccine advocates, or vaccine hesitancy. COVID vaccines have not been the exception (Larson and Broniatowski 2021). Vaccine acceptance was associated with statistically significant differences in the beliefs about the origin of the pandemic [χ2 = 236.789; p < 0.005; Cramer’s V = 0,279; p < 0.005]. Some psychological studies have associated the willingness to be vaccinated against COVID with individual traits of cognitive reflection (Grüner and Krüger 2021; Maroiu et al. 2022). Along with this tendency to explain the refusal to vaccinate as a matter of intuitive and unreflective personality traits (Tomljenovic et al. 2020), at other times, the nature of the conflict with vaccines is usually explained in terms of misinformation or issues of public trust (Mesch and Schwirian 2015; Jamison et al. 2019; Jolley and Douglas 2014; Larson et al. 2018). Our analysis shows that a much deeper cultural divergence may be at the root of the conflict, as the three profiles previously described hold a different stance in this respect (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2: Distribution of attitudes towards COVID vaccines among the beliefs about the origin of the pandemic.
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The question asked was: What is the first thing that comes to mind when you think of coronavirus vaccines? Own analysis based on our national online survey, Argentina, August 2021, 1943 cases.

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People who believe in a natural origin of the virus also had the highest expectations on COVID vaccines, while people supporting conspiracy theories about the pandemic also associated vaccines with big pharma businesses and had lower expectations. Meanwhile, those who believed in an accidental laboratory origin of the pandemic associated vaccines with some risk but also with some degree of hope to end the pandemic.

Trust in experts

When asked about the number of deaths from COVID-19, 70% of those who maintain that the virus had a natural origin trusted the official numbers. That percentage drops to 50% among those who believe that the pandemic originated from an accident in a laboratory, and to 30% among those who believe that the virus was released on purpose (Fig. 3). The correlation between these two variables showed statistically significant differences [χ2 = 721.162; p < 0.005; Cramer’s V = 0,258; p < 0.005].

Fig. 3: Distribution of attitudes towards COVID death numbers among the beliefs about the origin of the pandemic.
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The question asked was: There are people who say that the number of deaths from COVID has been manipulated to make it seem higher, and, on the contrary, others say that many deaths from this disease were hidden. What do you think? Own analysis based on our national online survey, Argentina, August 2021, 5990 cases.

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Among those who are inclined to believe in an accidental origin, a higher number than expected (30.6%) believe that there were more deaths from COVID-19 but they were hidden. Among those who maintain that the pandemic was created on purpose, 43% believe that the deaths from COVID-19 were fewer than reported.

Again, three different styles of thought are reflected here, with attitudes that differ from one another. In this question about confidence in the number of deaths from COVID-19 reverberates the perception that individuals have about the severity of the pandemic but, above all, it reflects confidence in experts in a general way. Indeed, those who believe that the death rate was manipulated to make it seem higher not only distrust the official organizations that deliver the figures, but also the experts who warned about the severity of the pandemic. On the other hand, those who believe that the informed rate of deaths was lower do not trust the experts either, but they do believe in the severity of the pandemic.

Moreover, we directly asked people’s opinions on the place given to epidemic specialists in government decisions. Our survey was carried out in Argentina, a country that had one of the strictest lockdowns at the beginning of the pandemic. Since then, the Argentine government had convened a panel of independent experts to advise on the measures to be taken and they had a significant presence in the media. Again, the perception of the role of experts varied according to the style of thought in question, showing a statistically significant correlation [χ2 = 303.841; p < 0.005; Cramer’s V = 0,166; p < 0.005]. Those who value the role of experts as “appropriate,” in turn, believe in a natural origin of the virus. Trust in experts decreases among those who believe that the virus escaped by accident and decreases even more among those who believe that the virus was released on purpose (Fig. 4).

Fig. 4: Distribution of attitudes towards confidence in the role of experts in pandemic measures among the beliefs about the origin of the pandemic.
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The question asked was: How do you evaluate the place given to epidemic specialists in government decisions? Own analysis based on our national online survey, Argentina, August 2021, 5990 cases.

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The percentage of those who believe that experts should have been listened to more is high in all three profiles, but this response is loaded with ambiguity: it may imply that those same experts who advised the government should have been listened to more, or that in fact other specialists -perhaps related to their beliefs- should also have been consulted. In any case, the option that they were consulted too much and should not have been given as much space clearly differentiates the three profiles, since this response is rarely chosen among those who believe in the natural origin of the virus, but it grows in the profile of those who believe that the virus was accidentally released, and even more so in the profile of people who think that the pandemic is fundamentally a deliberate manipulation (see Fig. 4).

When inquiring about the representation of science in relation to the pandemic, almost 74% of those who believe in the natural origin of the virus place their expectations of ending the pandemic on science (see Fig. 5). That number drops to 32% with those who believe the virus escaped by accident, and to 14.8% with those who believe the pandemic is an intentional manipulation. These last two profiles largely distrust science, highlighting the clearly negative role (science as responsible for the origin of the coronavirus) that almost 30% of those who believe that the virus was released on purpose assign to it (see Fig. 5).

Fig. 5: Distribution of attitudes towards the representation of science in relation to the pandemic among the beliefs about the origin of the pandemic.
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The question asked was: In relation to the pandemic, would you say that science… Own analysis based on our national online survey, Argentina, August 2021, 1943 cases.

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When asked about future measures to prevent new pandemics, different opinions are shown, with a statistically significant correlation with the origin of the pandemic [χ2 = 199.777; p < 0.005; Cramer’s V = 0,258; p < 0.005]. For those who believe in an intentional origin of the pandemic, the majority opinion is to totally ban virus experiments in laboratories, in accordance with their distrust of experts and their representation of science as the main responsible for the origin of the coronavirus. For those who side with the accidental leak theory, the main opinion is to fund science, while some skeptics believe that no measure will be effective as viruses arise naturally. Those who believe in the natural origin of the pandemic are more divided in their opinion, some prioritize the funding of science, others the protection of natural environments, and others have no hope that any measure will be effective (see Fig. 6).

Fig. 6: Distribution of attitudes towards possible measures to prevent new pandemics among the beliefs about the origin of the pandemic.
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The question asked was: What would be the most effective measure to prevent new pandemics? Own analysis based on our national online survey, Argentina, August 2021, 1943 cases.

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Ideological profile

The three different styles of thought can also be distinguished by their ideological profile, measured in terms of ideological self-perception [χ2 = 177.998; p < 0.005; Cramer’s V = 0.246; p < 0.005] (see Fig. 7). When people were asked to position themselves in an ideological spectrum, being 1 far-left and 10 far-right ideology, most people place themselves in the center of the ideological spectrum, but those who believe in a natural origin of the virus tend to recognize themselves as rather leftist, while in the other styles of thought prevails a right ideological self-perception.

Fig. 7: Distribution of self-perceived ideology (from left to right) among the beliefs about the origin of the pandemic.
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The question asked was: Generally, people talk about left-wing and right-wing ideologies. If you had to place yourself on a scale from 1 to 10, where 1 is LEFT and 10 is RIGHT, where would you place yourself on the scale? Own analysis based on our national online survey, Argentina, August 2021, 1943 cases.

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Perceptions regarding isolation and the social distancing measures adopted by the government during the pandemic are also an indicator of ideological values, as some privileged individual liberty while others prioritized collective health. The correlation between this and the origin of the pandemic also showed a statistical significance [χ2 = 353.577; p < 0.005; Cramer’s V = 0.176; p < 0.005].

Figure 8 shows that 49% of those who believe in the intentional origin of the virus felt unnecessarily deprived of freedom, compared to 41% among advocates of an accidental theory, and 25% of a natural origin theory.

Fig. 8: Distribution of attitudes toward restrictive measures during the pandemic among the beliefs about the origin of the pandemic.
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The question asked was: During the pandemic, regarding the activities and circulation restrictions… Own analysis based on our national online survey, Argentina, August 2021, 5990 cases.

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Believers in an intentional origin of the pandemic are not only the most individualistic and conspiratorial of the styles of thought, but also the most assertive in their belief (see Fig. 9) [χ2 = 355.052; p < 0.005; Cramer’s V = 0.177; p < 0.005]. Consistent with a conspiratorial profile, this level of certainty reveals a much more impenetrable style of thought, more close-minded and, therefore, less prone to accept new knowledge (Pellegrini 2019b: 225–230; Castoriadis 1992: 82; Light et al. 2022).

Fig. 9: Distribution of certainty among the beliefs about the origin of the pandemic.
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The question asked was: How certain are you of your answer regarding the origin of the virus? Own analysis based on our national online survey, Argentina, August 2021, 5990 cases.

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Discussion

The surveys carried out show that the Argentine population is divided into three well-differentiated groups in their beliefs about the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. An important finding is how attitudes articulate: each group showed a specific stance regarding the issues inquired. This is significant because most studies of conspiracy theories focus on some isolated correlation, such as political preference, and conclude a causal relationship from there. The fact that it is possible to distinguish groups of attitudes shows that each attitude is better understood as part of a cultural pattern; even more, the usual sociodemographic factors were transversal to these groups (see Appendix). In other words, the beliefs that each individual adopts are not completely random, there is a cultural trend that unites the attitudes of the members of a social group and differentiates it from others.

What leads people to adopt one cultural trend over another? In our opinion, it is the idea of expertise and, more precisely, their positioning in relation to expertise. In today’s societies many of the most important political confrontations are considered to imply different valuations of knowledge (Innerarity 2022: 22). Some authors state that a distinctive feature of this era is the rise of an anti-intellectualism because some part of the population might be arrogant in their ignorance (Nichols 2017), contemptuous of reason (Kakutani 2018) or embrace their cyclical and inevitable irrationality (Smith 2020). Nevertheless, we have argued at length elsewhere about why labeling others as irrational is a way to avoid understanding why they adopt the beliefs they do and that, instead, it is necessary to inquire about their own styles of thinking (Pellegrini 2023).

We have suggested that the question of expertise lies at the core of these divergent rationalities. In a way, Socrates was the first to recognize the figure of the expert (LaBarge 1997). Socrates’ conceptual turn was to recognize the limits of his own knowledge and to trust that others might have the knowledge that he lacked. Knowledge and trust are thus intertwined, and to the extent that there is a large amount of knowledge, dependence on others increases, since it becomes impossible to individually access and verify all available knowledge (Innerarity 2022: 12). However, an emerging feature of this age is the idea that we can individually know everything (Lynch 2019), a somewhat pre-Socratic turn.

We will then call the cultural theory of expertise the explanation of conflicts over knowledge-related issues based on the style of thought about expertise. We can distinguish two opposite ways of relating to expertise: recognizing the limits of our knowledge and trusting experts, and only trusting our own knowledge and distrusting experts. The former places expectations on science, technological developments and the opinion of specialists, while the latter is wary of the above. These two ways of thinking are reflected in our study as open-to-expertise and self-expertise-only accordingly. Interestingly, the study reflects a third group, which does not express to have high expectations of science and experts, but also does not align itself with conspiratorial ideas about them. We refer to this as a nihilist style of thought in relation to expertise (see Table 1).

Table 1 Styles of thought on expertise reflected in pandemic attitudes.
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Whether the nihilist style of thought is a transitory intermediate stage between the others or a proper style of thought on its own would require further study over time. In any case, our analysis helps to distinguish that distrust in science and experts does not necessarily entail conspiracy theories, for instance.

Individuals with an open-to-expertise style of thought had a consistent attitude to trust others and their knowledge, which means to have confidence in experts and set expectations in science, but also to embrace solidarity policies and cooperative ideologies, as they are all attitudes that are related to the predisposition to trust others. That is why those with an open-to-expertise style of thought are more likely to believe in the official zoonosis theory about the coronavirus than others. They also had more expectations in COVID vaccines and in science. They trust experts and official statistics about COVID deaths. People with these attitudes are also closer to a leftist ideology than others.

At the other end of the spectrum, individuals with a self-expertise style of thought tend to embrace conspiracy theories and, in a general sense, distrust any voice that speaks in the name of science and would choose policies that exalt individualism. In that sense, people with a self-expertise style of thought believe that COVID-19 was released on purpose, they do not hold expectations on experts and science, think that vaccines are the opposite of a real remedy, and that official statistics about the pandemic were mostly manipulated to spread fear. These results coincide with the conclusions reached by Murphy et al. (2021) in a survey carried out in Ireland and the UK, where they observed that COVID-19 vaccine-hesitant or resistant persons were more distrusting of experts, more likely to hold conspiratorial beliefs, and more self-interested.

A nihilist style of thought tends to embrace attitudes in between the other two, individuals have low expectations of experts and their claims, but they do not believe experts hold an obscure interest in manipulating our minds; they are inclined to individualistic policies and not to need the knowledge of others, but ultimately they do not hold much consideration for their own knowledge either. They believe the virus originated as an accidental lab leak, and this is consistent with their style of thought, as they don’t believe much in the word of experts but don’t award them with complot operations either.

The most important conclusion to draw from the cultural theory of expertise is that public conflicts about knowledge and scientific issues are conditioned by the way individuals understand expertise. Regarding the current debates about the role of fake news, mass media, and conspiracy theories, our approach suggests that these will impact differently depending on the style of thought about expertise that people hold. Each style of thought about expertise displays the tendency to adopt certain attitudes about knowledge-related conflicts and to reject others. The pandemic constituted a scenario that confronted different beliefs and attitudes that made it possible to highlight these different styles of thought about expertise. Further studies could contribute to the cultural theory of expertise by investigating correlations with other attitudes that are part of the same cultural tendencies, as well as their presence and implications in different contexts.

Conclusion

This study sought to analyze cultural patterns in attitudes toward the COVID-19 pandemic. To do so, we surveyed nearly 6000 people during the pandemic. Although our study focused on Argentina, we believe that the results can contribute to the understanding of the dynamics of cultural behavior in current societies in general. We found strong correlations in several attitudes analyzed, which allowed us to characterize three different styles of thought distributed in the population, represented by those who believe in a natural origin of the virus, those who believe it leaked by accident from a laboratory, and those who believe it was intentionally released.

An important finding of this work is how attitudes are articulated within each style of thought: each group has its own defined position on vaccines, science, and the pandemic, and its own ideological profile. Our analysis proposes a cultural theory of expertise as a model for giving meaning to these cultural patterns found. The cultural theory of expertise that we propose distinguishes styles of thought according to where people locate their knowledge authority. This allowed us to characterize the three styles of thought in relation to the pandemic as open-to-expertise (those who recognize the limits of their knowledge and rely on that of experts), self-expertise-only (those who rely only on their own knowledge), and nihilist (those who seem to adopt a nihilistic position on the subject).

Through this cultural theory of expertise, we have been able to interpret the strong correlation we have found between beliefs about the origin of the pandemic and vaccine representations, trust in experts, and ideological profiles. But we believe that this analysis could also be useful to contribute to the understanding of the reasons behind many conflicts related to knowledge in today’s societies.