“Tell Me More”: Vaccines and the Illusion of Knowledge
The newly minted president has an ambitious goal: vaccinating 300 million Americans by the end of summer or the beginning of fall.1 One obstacle that stands between President Biden and his goal is vaccine hesitancy. As of December 2020, 27% of the public said that they probably or definitely would not get the vaccine, even if it were free and deemed safe by scientists.2
Public opinion on vaccines
Despite findings from large clinical trials demonstrating the safety and effectiveness of the vaccines, misinformation regarding the vaccines has spread like wildfire.3,4 This is problematic, as studies have shown that exposure to vaccine-skeptical websites and blogs significantly reduces intentions to get vaccinated.5,6 Judging from the number of people who are vaccine-hesitant, it seems like many people have fallen prey to the falsehoods shared by people on various social media platforms.
According to Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, we need to vaccinate at least 75% of Americans in order to achieve herd immunity.7 If vaccination rates are significantly lower than that benchmark by the end of the summer, we may not be able to return to a life resembling pre-pandemic times this year.7 Needless to say, if we don’t reach herd immunity, the death toll will continue to rise.
Can states require their residents to get vaccinated so that we reach herd immunity as soon as possible? The short answer is yes. The 1905 U.S. Supreme Court case Jacobson v. Massachusetts established a legal precedent giving states the authority to mandate vaccinations.8 However, Lawrence Gostin, a law professor at Georgetown University said, “I think it’s very unlikely that they [states] will exercise that power. They would be fearful of causing a backlash and politicizing the vaccine.”9 His concern is not unfounded: only 57% of workers say they would support a workplace vaccine mandate once the shot becomes available to the public.10
In cases like these, leveraging insights from behavioral science might be the answer.
References
- Biden, J. R., Jr. (2021, January 26). Remarks by President Biden on the Fight to Contain the COVID-19 Pandemic. Retrieved January 31, 2021, from https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/01/26/remarks-by-president-biden-on-the-fight-to-contain-the-covid-19-pandemic/
- Hamel, L., Kirzinger, A., & Brodie, M. (2020, December 15). KFF COVID-19 Vaccine Monitor: December 2020. Retrieved January 23, 2021, from https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/report/kff-covid-19-vaccine-monitor-december-2020/
- Ensuring the Safety of COVID-19 Vaccines in the United States. (2021, January 19). Retrieved January 23, 2021, from https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/safety.html
- COVID-19 vaccine myths debunked. (2020, December 8). Retrieved January 23, 2021, from https://www.mayoclinichealthsystem.org/hometown-health/featured-topic/covid-19-vaccine-myths-debunked
- Betsch, C., Renkewitz, F., Betsch, T., & Ulshöfer, C. (2010). The influence of vaccine-critical websites on perceiving vaccination risks. Journal of health psychology, 15(3), 446-455.
- Nan, X., & Madden, K. (2012). HPV vaccine information in the blogosphere: how positive and negative blogs influence vaccine-related risk perceptions, attitudes, and behavioral intentions. Health communication, 27(8), 829-836.
- Powell, A. (2020, December 10). Fauci says herd immunity possible by fall, ‘normality’ by end of 2021. Retrieved January 11, 2021, from https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/12/anthony-fauci-offers-a-timeline-for-ending-covid-19-pandemic/
- Rosen, J. (2020, November 17). Can COVID-19 Vaccines Be Mandatory in the U.S. and Who Decides? Retrieved January 08, 2021, from https://www.jhsph.edu/covid-19/articles/can-covid-19-vaccines-be-mandatory-i n-the-u-s-and-who-decides.html
- Hauck, G. (2020, December 07). Yes, some Americans may be required to get a COVID-19 vaccine but not by the federal government. Retrieved January 24, 2021, from https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/12/05/covid-vaccine-required-government-employers/3797885001/
- Wronski, L., & Cohen, J. (2020, December 18). 57% of workers support a mandatory Covid-19 vaccine for return to office: CNBC Survey. Retrieved January 24, 2021, from https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/18/require-covid-19-vaccine-for-work-return-heres-what-americans-say.html
- Johnston, C. D., & Ballard, A. O. (2016). Economists and public opinion: Expert consensus and economic policy judgments. The Journal of Politics, 78(2), 443-456.
- Meyers, E. A., Turpin, M. H., Bialek, M., Fugelsang, J. A., & Koehler, D. J. (2020). Inducing feelings of ignorance makes people more receptive to expert (economist) opinion. Judgment and Decision Making, 15(6), 909-925.
- Hardwig, J. (1985). Epistemic dependence. The Journal of philosophy, 82(7), 335-349.
- Wagenknecht, S. (2015). Facing the incompleteness of epistemic trust: Managing dependence in scientific practice. Social Epistemology, 29(2), 160-184.
- Wegner, D. M. (1987). Transactive memory: A contemporary analysis of the group mind. In Theories of group behavior (pp. 185-208). Springer, New York, NY.
- Wegner, D. M., Erber, R., & Raymond, P. (1991). Transactive memory in close relationships. Journal of personality and social psychology, 61(6), 923.
- Sloman, S. A., & Rabb, N. (2016). Your understanding is my understanding: Evidence for a community of knowledge. Psychological science, 27(11), 1451-1460.
- Rozenblit, L., & Keil, F. (2002). The misunderstood limits of folk science: An illusion of explanatory depth. Cognitive science, 26(5), 521-562.
About the Author
Shi Shi Li
Shi Shi is currently a graduate student studying behavioral and decision sciences at the University of Pennsylvania. She is interested in using insights from behavioral science to solve a wide range of problems facing our society today. When she is not reading the latest behavioral science papers, she enjoys painting and playing video games with her friends. She also holds bachelor’s degrees in economics and psychology from the University of Southern California.
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