Science deniers question scientific milestones and spread misinformation, contradicting decades of scientific endeavour. Advocates for science need effective rebuttal strategies and are concerned ...about backfire effects in public debates. We conducted six experiments to assess how to mitigate the influence of a denier on the audience. An internal meta-analysis across all the experiments revealed that not responding to science deniers has a negative effect on attitudes towards behaviours favoured by science (for example, vaccination) and intentions to perform these behaviours. Providing the facts about the topic or uncovering the rhetorical techniques typical for denialism had positive effects. We found no evidence that complex combinations of topic and technique rebuttals are more effective than single strategies, nor that rebutting science denialism in public discussions backfires, not even in vulnerable groups (for example, US conservatives). As science deniers use the same rhetoric across domains, uncovering their rhetorical techniques is an effective and economic addition to the advocates' toolbox.
Monitoring the reasons why a considerable number of people do not receive recommended vaccinations allows identification of important trends over time, and designing and evaluating strategies to ...address vaccine hesitancy and increase vaccine uptake. Existing validated measures assessing vaccine hesitancy focus primarily on confidence in vaccines and the system that delivers them. However, empirical and theoretical work has stated that complacency (not perceiving diseases as high risk), constraints (structural and psychological barriers), calculation (engagement in extensive information searching), and aspects pertaining to collective responsibility (willingness to protect others) also play a role in explaining vaccination behavior. The objective was therefore to develop a validated measure of these 5C psychological antecedents of vaccination.
Three cross-sectional studies were conducted. Study 1 uses factor analysis to develop an initial scale and assesses the sub-scales' convergent, discriminant, and concurrent validity (N = 1,445, two German convenience-samples). In Study 2, a sample representative regarding age and gender for the German population (N = 1,003) completed the measure for vaccination in general and for specific vaccinations to assess the potential need for a vaccine-specific wording of items. Study 3 compared the novel scale's performance with six existing measures of vaccine hesitancy (N = 350, US convenience-sample). As an outcome, a long (15-item) and short (5-item) 5C scale were developed as reliable and valid indicators of confidence, complacency, constraints, calculation, and collective responsibility. The 5C sub-scales correlated with relevant psychological concepts, such as attitude (confidence), perceived personal health status and invulnerability (complacency), self-control (constraints), preference for deliberation (calculation), and communal orientation (collective responsibility), among others. The new scale provided similar results when formulated in a general vs. vaccine-specific way (Study 2). In a comparison of seven measures the 5C scale was constantly among the scales that explained the highest amounts of variance in analyses predicting single vaccinations (between 20% and 40%; Study 3). The present studies are limited to the concurrent validity of the scales.
The 5C scale provides a novel tool to monitor psychological antecedents of vaccination and facilitates diagnosis, intervention design and evaluation. Its short version is suitable for field settings and regular global monitoring of relevant antecedents of vaccination.
Influenza vaccine hesitancy is a significant threat to global efforts to reduce the burden of seasonal and pandemic influenza. Potential barriers of influenza vaccination need to be identified to ...inform interventions to raise awareness, influenza vaccine acceptance and uptake.
This review aims to (1) identify relevant studies and extract individual barriers of seasonal and pandemic influenza vaccination for risk groups and the general public; and (2) map knowledge gaps in understanding influenza vaccine hesitancy to derive directions for further research and inform interventions in this area.
Thirteen databases covering the areas of Medicine, Bioscience, Psychology, Sociology and Public Health were searched for peer-reviewed articles published between the years 2005 and 2016. Following the PRISMA approach, 470 articles were selected and analyzed for significant barriers to influenza vaccine uptake or intention. The barriers for different risk groups and flu types were clustered according to a conceptual framework based on the Theory of Planned Behavior and discussed using the 4C model of reasons for non-vaccination.
Most studies were conducted in the American and European region. Health care personnel (HCP) and the general public were the most studied populations, while parental decisions for children at high risk were under-represented. This study also identifies understudied concepts. A lack of confidence, inconvenience, calculation and complacency were identified to different extents as barriers to influenza vaccine uptake in risk groups.
Many different psychological, contextual, sociodemographic and physical barriers that are specific to certain risk groups were identified. While most sociodemographic and physical variables may be significantly related to influenza vaccine hesitancy, they cannot be used to explain its emergence or intensity. Psychological determinants were meaningfully related to uptake and should therefore be measured in a valid and comparable way. A compendium of measurements for future use is suggested as supporting information.
Misinformation about mRNA vaccination is a barrier in the global fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, authorities often rely on text-based refutations as a countermeasure. In two experiments (N ...= 2,444), text-based refutations effectively reduced the belief in misinformation and immunized participants against the impact of a misleading social media post. However, a follow-up (N = 817) questions the longevity of these debunking and prebunking effects. Moreover, the studies reveal potential pitfalls by showing a row of unintended effects of the refutations (lacking effect on intentions, backfire-effects among religious groups, and biased judgments when omitting information about vaccine side effects).
Vaccine hesitancy has been recognized as a major global health threat. Having access to any type of information in social media has been suggested as a potential influence on the growth of ...anti-vaccination groups. Recent studies w.r.t. other topics than vaccination show that access to a wide amount of content through the Internet without intermediaries resolved into major segregation of the users in polarized groups. Users select information adhering to theirs system of beliefs and tend to ignore dissenting information.
The goal was to assess whether users’ attitudes are polarized on the topic of vaccination on Facebook and how this polarization develops over time.
We perform a thorough quantitative analysis by studying the interaction of 2.6 M users with 298,018 Facebook posts over a time span of seven years and 5 months. We applied community detection algorithms to automatically detect the emergence of communities accounting for the users’ activity on the pages. Also, we quantified the cohesiveness of these communities over time.
Our findings show that the consumption of content about vaccines is dominated by the echo chamber effect and that polarization increased over the years. Well-segregated communities emerge from the users’ consumption habits i.e., the majority of users consume information in favor or against vaccines, not both.
The existence of echo chambers may explain why social-media campaigns that provide accurate information have limited reach and be effective only in sub-groups, even fomenting further opinion polarization. The introduction of dissenting information into a sub-group is disregarded and can produce a backfire effect, thus reinforcing the pre-existing opinions within the sub-group. Public health professionals should try to understand the contents of these echo chambers, for example by getting passively involved in such groups. Only then it will be possible to find effective ways of countering anti-vaccination thinking.
Ending the COVID-19 pandemic will require rapid large-scale uptake of vaccines against the disease. Mandating vaccination is discussed as a suitable strategy to increase uptake. In a series of ...cross-sectional quota-representative surveys and two preregistered experiments conducted in Germany and the US (total N = 4629), we investigated (i) correlates of individual preferences for mandatory (vs voluntary) COVID-19 vaccination policies; (ii) potential detrimental effects of mandatory policies; and (iii) interventions potentially counteracting them. Results indicate that reactance elicited by mandates can cause detrimental effects, such as decreasing the intention to vaccinate against influenza and adhere to COVID-19 related protective measures.
Vaccination as a social contract Korn, Lars; Böhm, Robert; Meier, Nicolas W. ...
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS,
06/2020, Volume:
117, Issue:
26
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Most vaccines protect both the vaccinated individual and the society by reducing the transmission of infectious diseases. In order to eliminate infectious diseases, individuals need to consider ...social welfare beyond mere self-interest—regardless of ethnic, religious, or national group borders. It has therefore been proposed that vaccination poses a social contract in which individuals are morally obliged to get vaccinated. However, little is known about whether individuals indeed act upon this social contract. If so, vaccinated individuals should reciprocate by being more generous to a vaccinated other. On the contrary, if the other doesn’t vaccinate and violates the social contract, generosity should decline. Three preregistered experiments investigated how a person’s own vaccination behavior, others’ vaccination behavior, and others’ group membership influenced a person’s generosity toward respective others. The experiments consistently showed that especially compliant (i.e., vaccinated) individuals showed less generosity toward nonvaccinated individuals. This effect was independent of the others’ group membership, suggesting an unconditional moral principle. An internal metaanalysis (n = 1,032) confirmed the overall social contract effect. In a fourth experiment (n = 1,212), this pattern was especially pronounced among vaccinated individuals who perceived vaccination as a moral obligation. It is concluded that vaccination is a social contract in which cooperation is the morally right choice. Individuals act upon the social contract, and more so the stronger they perceive it as a moral obligation. Emphasizing the social contract could be a promising intervention to increase vaccine uptake, prevent free riding, and, eventually, support the elimination of infectious diseases.
Because of the increasing popularity of voice-controlled virtual assistants, such as Amazon’s Alexa and Google Assistant, they should be considered a new medium for psychological and behavioral ...research. We developed Survey Mate, an extension of Google Assistant, and conducted two studies to analyze the reliability and validity of data collected through this medium. In the first study, we assessed validated procrastination and shyness scales as well as social desirability indicators for both the virtual assistant and an online questionnaire. The results revealed comparable internal consistency and construct and criterion validity. In the second study, five social psychological experiments, which have been successfully replicated by the Many Labs projects, were successfully reproduced using a virtual assistant for data collection. Comparable effects were observed for users of both smartphones and smart speakers. Our findings point to the applicability of virtual assistants in data collection independent of the device used. While we identify some limitations, including data privacy concerns and a tendency toward more socially desirable responses, we found that virtual assistants could allow the recruitment of participants who are hard to reach with established data collection techniques, such as people with visual impairment, dyslexia, or lower education. This new medium could also be suitable for recruiting samples from non-Western countries because of its wide availability and easily adaptable language settings. It could also support an increase in the generalizability of theories in the future.
Highlights ► Perceived own risk key driver of medical students’ vaccination intention. ► Own risk predicted intentions more strongly than knowledge of recommendation. ► Vaccination knowledge relates ...to greater perceived influenza risk and lower perceived AEFI risk. ► 63.5% of med students consider Internet to be an important or very important source of health information. ► 34–58% of websites provided correct information concerning vaccine safety questions.
PDF
