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The seductive allure of technical language and its effect on covid-19 vaccine beliefs and intentions

Previous research has demonstrated a ‘seductive allure’ of technical or reductive language such that bad (e.g., circular) explanations are judged better when irrelevant technical terms are included. We aimed to explore if such an effect was observable in relation to a covid-19 vaccinations and if th...

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Autores principales: Silas, Jonathan, Jones, Alexander, Weiss-Cohen, Leonardo, Ayton, Peter
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Elsevier Ltd. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8590938/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34802787
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.vaccine.2021.11.027
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author Silas, Jonathan
Jones, Alexander
Weiss-Cohen, Leonardo
Ayton, Peter
author_facet Silas, Jonathan
Jones, Alexander
Weiss-Cohen, Leonardo
Ayton, Peter
author_sort Silas, Jonathan
collection PubMed
description Previous research has demonstrated a ‘seductive allure’ of technical or reductive language such that bad (e.g., circular) explanations are judged better when irrelevant technical terms are included. We aimed to explore if such an effect was observable in relation to a covid-19 vaccinations and if this subsequently affected behavioural intentions to take up a covid-19 vaccine. Using a between subjects design we presented participants (N = 996) with one of four possible types of vignette that explained how covid-19 vaccination and herd immunity works. The explanations varied along two factors: (1) Quality, explanations were either good or bad (i.e., tautological); (2) Language, explanations either contained unnecessary technical language or did not. We measured participants’ evaluation of the explanations and intentions to vaccinate. We demonstrate a ‘seductive allure’ effect of technical language on bad vaccine explanations. However, an opposite ‘repellent disdain’ effect occurred for good explanations which were rated worse when they contained technical language. Moreover, we show that evaluations of explanations influence intentions to vaccinate. We suggest that misinformation that includes technical language could be more detrimental to vaccination rates. Importantly, however, clear explanatory public health information that omits technical language will be more effective in increasing intentions to vaccinate.
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spelling pubmed-85909382021-11-15 The seductive allure of technical language and its effect on covid-19 vaccine beliefs and intentions Silas, Jonathan Jones, Alexander Weiss-Cohen, Leonardo Ayton, Peter Vaccine Article Previous research has demonstrated a ‘seductive allure’ of technical or reductive language such that bad (e.g., circular) explanations are judged better when irrelevant technical terms are included. We aimed to explore if such an effect was observable in relation to a covid-19 vaccinations and if this subsequently affected behavioural intentions to take up a covid-19 vaccine. Using a between subjects design we presented participants (N = 996) with one of four possible types of vignette that explained how covid-19 vaccination and herd immunity works. The explanations varied along two factors: (1) Quality, explanations were either good or bad (i.e., tautological); (2) Language, explanations either contained unnecessary technical language or did not. We measured participants’ evaluation of the explanations and intentions to vaccinate. We demonstrate a ‘seductive allure’ effect of technical language on bad vaccine explanations. However, an opposite ‘repellent disdain’ effect occurred for good explanations which were rated worse when they contained technical language. Moreover, we show that evaluations of explanations influence intentions to vaccinate. We suggest that misinformation that includes technical language could be more detrimental to vaccination rates. Importantly, however, clear explanatory public health information that omits technical language will be more effective in increasing intentions to vaccinate. Elsevier Ltd. 2021-12-20 2021-11-15 /pmc/articles/PMC8590938/ /pubmed/34802787 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.vaccine.2021.11.027 Text en © 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Since January 2020 Elsevier has created a COVID-19 resource centre with free information in English and Mandarin on the novel coronavirus COVID-19. The COVID-19 resource centre is hosted on Elsevier Connect, the company's public news and information website. Elsevier hereby grants permission to make all its COVID-19-related research that is available on the COVID-19 resource centre - including this research content - immediately available in PubMed Central and other publicly funded repositories, such as the WHO COVID database with rights for unrestricted research re-use and analyses in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for free by Elsevier for as long as the COVID-19 resource centre remains active.
spellingShingle Article
Silas, Jonathan
Jones, Alexander
Weiss-Cohen, Leonardo
Ayton, Peter
The seductive allure of technical language and its effect on covid-19 vaccine beliefs and intentions
title The seductive allure of technical language and its effect on covid-19 vaccine beliefs and intentions
title_full The seductive allure of technical language and its effect on covid-19 vaccine beliefs and intentions
title_fullStr The seductive allure of technical language and its effect on covid-19 vaccine beliefs and intentions
title_full_unstemmed The seductive allure of technical language and its effect on covid-19 vaccine beliefs and intentions
title_short The seductive allure of technical language and its effect on covid-19 vaccine beliefs and intentions
title_sort seductive allure of technical language and its effect on covid-19 vaccine beliefs and intentions
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8590938/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34802787
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.vaccine.2021.11.027
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