Opposition to voluntary and mandated COVID-19 vaccination as a dynamic process: Evidence and policy implications of changing beliefs

Abstract

Significance The challenge of securing adherence to public health policies is compounded when an emerging threat and a set of unprecedented remedies are not fully understood among the general public. The evolution of citizens’ attitudes toward vaccination during the COVID-19 pandemic offers psychologically and sociologically grounded insights that enrich the conventional incentives- and constraints-based approach to policy design. We thus contribute to a behavioral science of policy compliance during public health emergencies of the kind that we may increasingly face in the future. From early in the pandemic, we have tracked the same individuals, providing a lens into the conditions under which people’s attitudes toward voluntary and mandated vaccinations change, providing essential information for COVID-19 policy not available from cross-section data.

Did COVID vaccine mandates work? What the data say

“…In Germany, Katrin Schmelz, a psychologist at the University of Konstanz, has led a unique series of surveys that tracked the evolving views of nearly 2,000 German residents over the course of the pandemic 7 .…”

Politics of COVID-19 vaccine mandates: Left/right-wing authoritarianism, social dominance orientation, and libertarianism

“…To boost vaccination rates and achieve herd immunity, various mandatory and punitive vaccination policies are being proposed or implemented, such as requiring vaccination certificates for public activities and firing employees who refuse vaccination. While vaccine mandates may be an important policy tool to reach near-universal vaccination, mandatory policies could result in more resistance among the public ( Batteux, Mills, Jones, Symons, & Weston, 2022 ; Schmelz & Bowles, 2022 ). Vaccine mandates have raised considerable objections: protests against COVID-19 vaccination have broken out in multiple countries ( Smith, 2022 ); the vaccine mandate for employees at large companies from the Biden administration has been blocked ( Sherman, 2022 ).…”

Public policy and conspiracies: The case of mandates

“…Reactance has long been implicated in anti-vaccination attitudes (e.g., [ 42 ], and it also been identified as a driver of opposition to mask wearing [ 57 ]. Thus, while COVID-19 vaccine mandates may well be associated with disgruntlement [ 52 ] or reactance [ 39 , 43 ], mandates need not be the sole trigger of such adverse reactions. Instead, mandates may be another target for opposition by people who are already radicalized, already believe in conspiracy theories that predate the pandemic, or whose reactance is triggered by any public health measures to control the pandemic.…”