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Religious identity cues increase vaccination intentions and trust in medical experts among American Christians

Containing the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States requires mobilizing a large majority of the mass public to vaccinate, but many Americans are hesitant or opposed to vaccination. A significant predictor of vaccine attitudes in the United States is religiosity, with more-religious individuals exp...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Chu, James, Pink, Sophia L., Willer, Robb
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: National Academy of Sciences 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8670469/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34795017
http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2106481118
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author Chu, James
Pink, Sophia L.
Willer, Robb
author_facet Chu, James
Pink, Sophia L.
Willer, Robb
author_sort Chu, James
collection PubMed
description Containing the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States requires mobilizing a large majority of the mass public to vaccinate, but many Americans are hesitant or opposed to vaccination. A significant predictor of vaccine attitudes in the United States is religiosity, with more-religious individuals expressing more distrust in science and being less likely to get vaccinated. Here, we test whether explicit cues of common religious identity can help medical experts build trust and increase vaccination intentions. In a preregistered survey experiment conducted with a sample of unvaccinated American Christians (n = 1,765), we presented participants with a vaccine endorsement from a prominent medical expert (NIH Director Francis Collins) and a short essay about doctors’ and scientists’ endorsement of the vaccines. In the common religious identity condition, these materials also highlighted the religious identity of Collins and many medical experts. Unvaccinated Christians in the common identity condition expressed higher trust in medical experts, greater intentions to vaccinate, and greater intentions to promote vaccination to friends and family than those who did not see the common identity cue. These effects were moderated by religiosity, with the strongest effects observed among the most religious participants, and statistically mediated by heightened perceptions of shared values with the medical expert endorsing the vaccine. These findings demonstrate the efficacy of common identity cues for promoting vaccination in a vaccine-hesitant subpopulation. More generally, the results illustrate how trust in science can be built through the invocation of common group identities, even identities often assumed to be in tension with science.
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spelling pubmed-86704692021-12-28 Religious identity cues increase vaccination intentions and trust in medical experts among American Christians Chu, James Pink, Sophia L. Willer, Robb Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A Social Sciences Containing the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States requires mobilizing a large majority of the mass public to vaccinate, but many Americans are hesitant or opposed to vaccination. A significant predictor of vaccine attitudes in the United States is religiosity, with more-religious individuals expressing more distrust in science and being less likely to get vaccinated. Here, we test whether explicit cues of common religious identity can help medical experts build trust and increase vaccination intentions. In a preregistered survey experiment conducted with a sample of unvaccinated American Christians (n = 1,765), we presented participants with a vaccine endorsement from a prominent medical expert (NIH Director Francis Collins) and a short essay about doctors’ and scientists’ endorsement of the vaccines. In the common religious identity condition, these materials also highlighted the religious identity of Collins and many medical experts. Unvaccinated Christians in the common identity condition expressed higher trust in medical experts, greater intentions to vaccinate, and greater intentions to promote vaccination to friends and family than those who did not see the common identity cue. These effects were moderated by religiosity, with the strongest effects observed among the most religious participants, and statistically mediated by heightened perceptions of shared values with the medical expert endorsing the vaccine. These findings demonstrate the efficacy of common identity cues for promoting vaccination in a vaccine-hesitant subpopulation. More generally, the results illustrate how trust in science can be built through the invocation of common group identities, even identities often assumed to be in tension with science. National Academy of Sciences 2021-11-18 2021-12-07 /pmc/articles/PMC8670469/ /pubmed/34795017 http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2106481118 Text en Copyright © 2021 the Author(s). Published by PNAS. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This open access article is distributed under Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (CC BY) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Social Sciences
Chu, James
Pink, Sophia L.
Willer, Robb
Religious identity cues increase vaccination intentions and trust in medical experts among American Christians
title Religious identity cues increase vaccination intentions and trust in medical experts among American Christians
title_full Religious identity cues increase vaccination intentions and trust in medical experts among American Christians
title_fullStr Religious identity cues increase vaccination intentions and trust in medical experts among American Christians
title_full_unstemmed Religious identity cues increase vaccination intentions and trust in medical experts among American Christians
title_short Religious identity cues increase vaccination intentions and trust in medical experts among American Christians
title_sort religious identity cues increase vaccination intentions and trust in medical experts among american christians
topic Social Sciences
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8670469/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34795017
http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2106481118
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