This chapter is a part of the report Publishable synthesis of project’s main findings (Deliverable 8.12). We take a developmental perspective to retrospectively explore the experiences of early to late adolescents and adults with institutional decision-making during the COVID-19 pandemic and the impact of these experiences on (dis)trust. Based on our results, we propose two critical experiences that can be critical for the formation of distrust in institutions among younger people: a) the hypocrisy of public authorities and, b) the false hope that the pandemic is already managed, only for the opposite to eventually prove true.