Exploring metaphor's communicative effects in reasoning on vaccination

Abstract

IntroductionThe paper investigates the impact of the use of metaphors in reasoning tasks concerning vaccination, especially for defeasible reasoning cases. We assumed that both metaphor and defeasible reasoning can be relevant to let people understand vaccination as an important collective health phenomenon, by anticipating possible defeating conditions.MethodsWe hypothesized that extended metaphor could improve both the argumentative and the communicative effects of the message. We designed an empirical study to test our main hypotheses: participants (N = 196, 78% females; Meanage = 27.97 years, SDage = 10.40) were presented with a text about vaccination, described in either literal or metaphorical terms, based on uncertain vs. safe reasoning scenarios.ResultsThe results of the study confirmed that defeasible reasoning is relevant for the communicative impact of a text and that an extended metaphor enhances the overall communicative effects of the message, in terms of understandability, persuasion, perceived safety, and feeling of control over the health situation, collective trust in expertise and uptake of experts' advice. However, the results show that this effect is significantly nuanced by the type of defeasible reasoning, especially in the case of participants' trust in expertise and commitment to experts' advice.ConclusionBoth communicative and defeasible reasoning competences are needed to enhance trust in immunization, with possible different outcomes at an individual and collective level.

Seatbelts and raincoats, or banks and castles: Investigating the impact of vaccine metaphors

“…Perhaps not surprisingly, scientists, doctors, and public health officials often use metaphors to explain how vaccines work and to address common questions, concerns, and misconceptions. However, the effectiveness of these metaphors has not been convincingly demonstrated empirically (though some researchers have begun to address this issue, e.g., [ 37 ]). In the current study, we investigated the impact of a range of explanatory metaphors on vaccine attitudes.…”

“…There has been limited research on the impact of metaphor framing on vaccine attitudes [ 36 , 37 ]. In one such study, Scherer and colleagues [ 36 ] investigated whether describing influenza metaphorically (as a beast , riot , army , or weed ) would increase people’s willingness and interest in being vaccinated.…”

“…A recent study by Ervas and colleagues [ 37 ] did examine how an explanatory metaphor would impact the efficacy of vaccine communications. Their central message focused on “collective immunity,” emphasizing how all people should be required to receive a vaccination to benefit the larger group.…”

Explaining the Mechanism Behind mRNA Vaccines Influences Perceived Vaccine Effectiveness but not Vaccination Intentions

“…Analogies and metaphors can be employed to facilitate the understanding of health concepts (Ervas et al, 2022;Galesic & Garcia-Retamero, 2013). Holyoak and Stamenković define a metaphor as a figure of speech that describes "one thing in terms of something else that is conceptually very different" (Holyoak & Stamenković, 2018, p. 641).…”

Effects of redundant similes on persuasiveness in written arguments

“…Rhetorical expressions are also considered beneficial in improving the persuasiveness of arguments. In particular, the persuasive effect of figurative language has been empirically examined (e.g., Lee et al, 2019;Ervas et al, 2022;Huang and Hsieh, 2023), and meta-analyses have shown that arguments and speech including figurative language are more persuasive than literal ones (Sopory and Dillard, 2002;Van Stee, 2018). Therefore, not only using effective frameworks of argumentations but also incorporating figurative expressions, such as similes and metaphors, is an effective way to enhance the persuasiveness of written arguments.…”