The influence of grammatical gender on cognitive processes is an important issue in contemporary psycholinguistics and language psychology, particularly in research concerning the relations between grammar and semantics. The extent of this effect is dependent on a given language’s gender system and its grammatical specifics. The aim of the presented research was to investigate grammatical gender effects in Polish – a Slavic language with three singular and two plural grammatical genders. In Experiment 1, triadic similarity judgments were used, and it turned out that the grammatical gender of nouns influenced perceived similarity of words in case of animals, but not inanimate objects or abstract concepts. In Experiment 2 we used a modified Implicit Association Test; results suggest that grammatical gender seems to be of implicit nature, as grammatical gender consistency influenced reaction times and the number of classification errors. In Experiment 3 participants assigned male and female voices to animals and inanimate objects, which were presented either as words or as pictures. Grammatical gender effects occurred for both animate and inanimate objects and were similar for verbal and visual stimuli. It turned out that in the Polish language the influence of grammatical gender may occur on the lexicosemantic level and the conceptual level, and concerns both animate and inanimate objects. Results are discussed in context of the similarity and gender and the sex and gender hypotheses.

This paper investigates the susceptibility to anti-vaccine rhetoric in the vaccine-hesitant population. Based on the literature on attitudes and attitude change it was assumed that susceptibility to anti-vaccine arguments may be related to personal experience with vaccination and to the strength of vaccine hesitant attitudes. The first aim of the study was to investigate the relation between personal experience with post-vaccination side effects and acceptance of select categories of anti-vaccine arguments. The second aim was to compare whether vaccination deniers and the vaccine-ambiguous group differ in their susceptibility to these arguments. The online survey was run in Poland on a final sample of 492 vaccine hesitant respondents. Results indicate that individuals who declared a negative experience with vaccination were persuaded by all types of anti-vaccine arguments. Moreover, pre-existing anti-vaccine skepticism may cause individuals to interpret negative symptoms as consequences of vaccines, further reinforcing the negative attitude. Additionally, it appeared that the vaccine-ambiguous believe in serious negative side effects of vaccination and ulterior motives of pharmaceutical companies, but do not believe that vaccines are ineffective. However, the opinion profile for vaccine deniers indicates that it may be a generalized stance, rather than a set of individual issues concerning different perceived negative aspects of vaccination.

Vaccine rejection is a problem severely impacting the global society, especially considering the COVID-19 outbreak. The need to understand the psychological mechanisms underlying the active involvement of the pro-vaccine and anti-vaccine movements is therefore very important both from a theoretical and practical perspective. This paper investigates the group identities of people with positive and negative attitudes towards vaccination, and their attitudes toward general science. A targeted sample study of 192 pro-vaccine and 156 anti-vaccine group members showed that the group identity of pro-vaccine individuals is higher than of anti-vaccine individuals. and that both pro-vaccine and anti-vaccine individuals had a positive attitude toward science. Results are discussed in context of the heterogeneity of motivations causing vaccine rejection and the relation between active involvement in online discussion and group identity.

AIMS: The aim of the study was to investigate the relation between declared intention to get/not get vaccinated against COVID-19, prior to the start of the global vaccination program, and actual vaccine uptake. Moreover, reasons for getting vaccinated or rejecting it were measured along with declared intent and behavior. METHODS: Within a longitudinal design, a representative sample of 918 Polish people was surveyed in February 2021 and August 2021. In February 2021, participants were asked about their intention to get vaccinated against COVID-19 and the reasons behind it. In August 2021, the same group was asked about having been vaccinated, along with the reasons. RESULTS: A significant pro-vaccine shift from declared intent to behavior was observed, with many participants turning away from being anti-vaccine or undecided and getting vaccinated. Significant correlations with attitudes toward general mandatory vaccination of children were found. Increased support for anti-vaccine arguments was seen over time in the unvaccinated sample, and decreased support for pro-vaccine arguments was seen in the vaccinated sample. Several key arguments for and against vaccination were identified. CONCLUSIONS: Declared attitude toward COVID-19 vaccination is not fully consistent with vaccination behavior. Pro-vaccine changes in attitudes of previously anti-vaccine and undecided individuals indicate that these groups may be influenced to potentially accept the COVID-19 vaccination over time.

Background: The research focused on the relationships between attitudes towards vaccination and the trust placed in different sources of information (science, experts and the information available on the Internet) before and during COVID-19. Method: A longitudinal design was applied with the first measurement in February 2018 (N = 1039). The second measurement (N = 400) was carried out in December 2020 to test if the pandemic influenced the trust in different sources of information. Results: The final analyses carried out on final sample of 400 participants showed that there has been no change in trust in the Internet as a source of knowledge about health during the pandemic. However, the trust in science, physicians, subjective health knowledge, as well as the attitude towards the vaccination has declined. Regression analysis also showed that changes in the level of trust in physicians and science were associated with analogous (in the same direction) changes in attitudes toward vaccination. The study was also focused on the trust in different sources of health knowledge as possible predictors of willingness to be vaccinated against SARS-nCoV-2. However, it appeared that the selected predictors explained a small part of the variance. This suggests that attitudes toward the new COVID vaccines may have different sources than attitudes toward vaccines that have been known to the public for a long time.