Youth and science: A randomized survey experiment on adolescents’ trust in scientific institutions

The present analysis aims at measuring the level of trust in scientific and medical institutions in a very challenging period, since answers were collected at the beginning of 2022 when COVID-19 still represented a global emergency. The study presents a randomized survey experiment designed to verify whether adolescents have been affected by the “replication crisis” and to discover possible ways to stimulate trust among young people. We decided to restrict our attention to this age range since we strongly support the theory that trust and other beliefs mainly modify when young people pass through early adolescence, facing evolving skepticism, self-consciousness and higher risk behaviours.