Vaccine-hesitant people misperceive the social norm of vaccination.

ABSTRACT: Vaccine hesitancy is one of the main threats to global health, as became clear once more during the COVID-19 pandemic. Vaccination campaigns could benefit from appeals to social norms to promote vaccination, but without awareness of the social norm in place any intervention relying on social norms may backfire. We present a two-step approach of social norm diagnosis and intervention that identifies both whether a vaccination norm exists or develops over time and corrects misperceptions. In two studies (N=887 and N=412) conducted in Rome, Italy from June to August 2021 (during the first COVID-19 vaccination campaign), we show that vaccine-hesitant people strongly underestimated vaccine acceptance rates for COVID-19 despite increases in region-wide vaccination rates. This suggests a false co

SUBMITTER: Vriens E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10165803 | biostudies-literature | 2023 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature