Naslov
Contribution of rationality to vaccine attitudes: Testing two hypotheses

Autori
Tomljenović, Helena ; Bubić, Andreja ; Erceg, Nikola

Izvornik
Journal of behavioral decision making (0894-3257) Epdf (2021); 1-12

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Radovi u časopisima, članak, znanstveni

Ključne riječi
bounded rationality, cognitive reflection, expressive rationality, heuristic thinking, vaccineattitudes

Sažetak
Although previous studies have demonstrated an association between vaccineattitudes and cognitive biases, often resulting in vaccination hesitancy, the exact con-tribution of rationality has not been fully clarified. We tested two hypotheses regard-ing the impact of rationality on vaccine attitudes stemming from bounded andexpressive rationality. We focused on parental vaccine attitudes operationalized bythe affective, behavioral, and cognitive attitude components and investigated howthese are influenced by disillusionment toward authorities and ability to engage inrational thinking operationalized using cognitive reflection and heuristics and biasestasks. The study was of a cross-sectional correlational design with a non- probabilisticsample of 823 volunteer participants surveyed online in April and May 2018 inCroatia. The results identified disillusionment toward authorities as a predictor of allcomponents. Furthermore, performance on heuristics and biases tasks also predictedthe affective and cognitive, but not the behavioral component, whereas cognitivereflection had no impact on vaccine attitudes. Next, a moderation effect ofdisillusionment toward authorities on the association between the omission bias taskand all attitude components was identified. Parents with low disillusionment demon-strated positive vaccine attitudes regardless of their rationality, whereas for parentswith high disillusionment a significant positive correlation between performance onthe omission bias task as assessed with a vaccination vignette and attitudes was iden-tified. This suggests that the ability to resist vaccine specific omission bias, that is, higher rationality, can decrease the negative effects of disillusionment, which sup-ports the bounded rationality hypothesis.

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

Znanstvena područja
Psihologija

POVEZANOST RADA