Contribution of rationality to vaccine attitudes: Testing two hypotheses

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Behavioral Science

Background:

• Vaccine hesitancy is linked to cognitive biases.
• The role of rationality in vaccine attitudes requires further clarification.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the impact of rationality on parental vaccine attitudes.
• To examine the influence of disillusionment toward authorities and rational thinking abilities.

Main Methods:

• Cross-sectional correlational study with 823 participants.
• Online survey assessing vaccine attitudes, disillusionment, cognitive reflection, and heuristics and biases.
• Vaccination vignette used to assess omission bias.

Main Results:

• Disillusionment toward authorities predicted all vaccine attitude components (affective, behavioral, cognitive).
• Heuristics and biases tasks predicted affective and cognitive attitudes, but not behavioral.
• Rationality moderated the effect of omission bias on vaccine attitudes, particularly for highly disillusioned parents.

Conclusions:

• Higher rationality, specifically resisting omission bias, can mitigate negative vaccine attitudes stemming from disillusionment.
• Findings support the bounded rationality hypothesis regarding vaccine decision-making.