Narrative Messages, Information Seeking and COVID-19 Vaccine Intention: The Moderating Role of Perceived Behavioral Control

Abstract

Purpose: The main purposes of the current study are to examine 1) the influence of narrative vs. statistics messages on COVID-19 related information seeking and COVID-19 vaccine intention, and 2) the moderating role of perceived behavioral control (PBC).
Design: Data for a between-subject randomized experiment were collected online. The manipulation messages were presented as screenshots from the CDC’s Facebook page. 
Setting: The participants were recruited from Amazon MTurk. 
Subjects: A total of 300 subjects participated in the study, who were 18 years and above (M = 38.40).
Measures: Intention to seek information, COVID-19 vaccine intention, and PBC. 
Analysis: To test the hypotheses, we utilized Hayes’s (2014) PROCESS for SPSS (Model 1). For intention to seek information, the main effect of the message manipulation (narrative vs. statistics) [b = -2.10, t (300) = -4.14, p < .001] and the interaction [b = .41, t (300) = 3.88, p < .001] were significant. For vaccine intention the main effects of message manipulation [b = 1.64, t (300) = -2.61, p < .005] and the interaction [b = .34, t (300) = 2.64, p < .005] were significant.
Results: Our research found that narrative messages were more persuasive for both information seeking and vaccine intention. But this was true only in the case of individuals whose PBC was low.
Conclusions: Our findings have critical implications for vaccine promotion research. 


A Story is Better Told With Collective Interests: An Experimental Examination of Misinformation Correction During the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…The measures for the current study were adopted from prior literature. 10,20,35 Correction intention was measured using two items ( M = 2.90, SD = 2.01, r = .84). 10 Discussion intention was measured using three items ( M = 2.98, SD = 1.82, α = .89).…”

“…Based on previous studies, social media use, social media trust, education, and political affiliation were included as covariates. 20,[39][40][41] Participants' social media use was measured on a Likert-type scale ranging from "never" (0) to "multiple times a day" (4) (M = 2.29, SD = 1.46). Social media trust was measured by asking participants to indicate how much trust they have in social media platforms on a Likert-type scale ranging from "none at all" (0) to "a great deal" (4) (M = 1.46, SD = 1.25).…”

“…For example, with a between-subject randomized experiment, Borah et al found that narrative message is more persuasive than statistical messages in facilitating peoples’ intention to receive the COVID-19 vaccine and seek related information. 20 Similar conclusions were also buttressed by a few meta-analyses. 27 However, other systematic works demonstrated a negligible difference between the two types of messaging strategies.…”

“…4,5,19 Against this backdrop, a growing body of research has identified strategies to counter misinformation. 9,[20][21][22] For example, Basol et al found that playing a five-minute browser game and reading real-world infographics from authoritative organizations reduced individuals' vulnerability to COVID-19-related misinformation. 21 Pennycook et al indicated that prompting individuals to pay attention to the accuracy of social media posts could be an effective strategy to reduce misinformation sharing.…”

“…Lastly, previous research suggested that in processing health messages in the context of social media, the frequency of social media use and the trust toward the platform may confound the message effects. 20,39 More importantly, as the public response to the COVID-19 pandemic has been politicized and subjected to misinformation, the levels of education and political affiliation also interfere with message persuasion in COVID-19-related health promotion. 40,41 Therefore, this study included social media use, social media trust, education, and political affiliation as covariates.…”