"In a pair of studies testing competing theories, two general questions that elicited participants' overall sense of risks and benefits explained vaccine hesitancy significantly better than the more precise, quantitative measures long favored by economists and psychologists. Categorizations of risks and benefits simply as none, low, medium or high significantly predicted whether people intended to get a vaccine or not. Study participants who perceived benefits as none or low, or risks as medium or high, tended to not vaccinate, for example."
""We make decisions based on the bottom-line gist of information: What does all this information boil down to? What's the decision really about?" said Valerie Reyna , the Lois and Melvin Tukman Professor of Human Development in the Department of Psychology and College of Human Ecology. "If we know the essence of how someone feels about these ideas, we can explain and predict their intentions with respect to vaccination.""
Flu infections are rising across the United States, contributing to at least 81,000 hospitalizations and 3,100 deaths this season. Decision-making about vaccination depends more on intuitive, bottom-line gists of risks and benefits and how those gists align with core values than on detailed quantitative facts. Two studies compared competing theories and found that simple categorical assessments of risks and benefits (none, low, medium, high) predicted vaccination intentions better than precise, numerical measures. Perceiving benefits as none or low or perceiving risks as medium or high was associated with intentions not to vaccinate. Understanding gist perceptions can explain and predict vaccination choices.
Read at Cornell Chronicle
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