Does optimism about COVID-19 and viewing vaccination against it in moral terms predict vaccination?

What is it about?

We asked a large group of Belgians five times over a six months period during the pandemic (December 2020-May 2021) about their willingness to get vaccinated against COVID-19. We also measured their personal optimism (the belief that one is at low risk) and comparative risk (the belief that one is at lower risk than one’s peers) concerning COVID-19, and the extent to which they thought of vaccination in moral rather than in health-related or rational terms (moralization). Besides observing marked differences between linguistic-cultural regions we found that personal and comparative optimism predicted vaccination decisions to different extents depending on participants’ age and depending on whether the optimism was about the likelihood of infection, of severe disease, or of a good outcome. In older participants, vaccination decision was mostly predicted by personal optimism; in younger participants it was mostly predicted by comparative optimism. Moralizing vaccination predicted lower, rather than higher vaccination readiness, particularly in older people.

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Why is it important?

Our findings have implications for public health communication. They suggest that public health messages should address comparative optimism when targeting younger people but address personal optimism when targeting older people. Contrary to popular belief, contrary to findings from methodologically less powerful research, and contrary to widely used persuasion strategies, moreover, they should avoid moralizing vaccination.

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