Political ideology shapes risk and benefit judgments of COVID‐19 vaccines

Abstract

In April 2021, the use of the Johnson & Johnson COVID‐19 vaccine was paused to investigate whether it had caused serious blood clots to a small number of women (six out of 6.8 million Americans who had been administered that vaccine). As these events were unfolding, we surveyed a sample of Americans (N = 625) to assess their reactions to this news, whether they supported the pausing of the vaccine, and potential psychological factors underlying their decision. In addition, we employed automated text analyses as a supporting method to more classical quantitative measures. Results showed that political ideology influenced the support for the pausing of the vaccine; liberals were more likely to oppose it than conservatives. In addition, the effect of political ideology was mediated by the difference between perceived benefit and risk and the language style used to produce reasons in support (or against) the decision to pause the vaccine. Liberals perceived the benefit of vaccines higher than the risk, used a more analytic language style when stating their reasons, and had a more positive attitude toward the vaccine. We discuss the implications of our findings considering vaccine hesitancy and risk perception during the COVID‐19 pandemic.

Deconstructing deception: Frequency, communicator characteristics, and linguistic features of embeddedness

“…This technique uses Principal Component Analysis to identify how content words cluster statistically after varimax rotation. The approach, which first removes style words (e.g., articles, prepositions, pronouns) and low base‐rate words to prepare for the analysis of content words, has received robust support in communication research and psychology as a way to systematically evaluate themes and topics from large text collections (Blackburn et al, 2018; Chung & Pennebaker, 2008; Fauville et al, 2023; Markowitz & Slovic, 2020; Pham et al, 2023; Ramirez‐esparza et al, 2008; Rubaltelli et al, 2023). Consistent with prior work (Foxman et al, 2021; Markowitz, 2021), the number of extracted themes was determined by a combination of scree plot evidence, variance explained (e.g., each additional theme should contribute a nontrivial amount of added variance), and thematic interpretability.…”

Deconstructing Deception: Frequency, Communicator Characteristics, and Linguistic Features of Embeddedness

“…To accomplish this aim, embedded lies and embedded truths were independently submitted to the Meaning Extraction Method Markowitz, 2021), a technique that uses Principal Component Analysis to identify how content words cluster statistically after varimax rotation. This approach, which first removes style words (e.g., articles, prepositions, pronouns) and low base-rate words to prepare for the analysis of content words, has received robust support in communication research and psychology as a way to systematically evaluate themes and topics from large text collections (Blackburn et al, 2018;Fauville et al, 2023;Markowitz & Slovic, 2020;Pham et al, 2023;Ramirez-esparza et al, 2008;Rubaltelli et al, 2023). Consistent with prior work (Foxman et al, 2021;Markowitz, 2021), the number of extracted themes was determined by a combination of scree plot evidence, variance explained (e.g., each additional theme should contribute a nontrivial amount of added variance), and thematic interpretability.…”

The 8 billion milestone: Risk perceptions of global population growth among UK and US residents

“…This finding indicates that public concerns about GPG are more strongly associated with cultural values, beliefs, and cognitions in the United States (cf. the United Kingdom), which may correspond with a higher level of polarization that is often observed in US public opinion on social, environmental, and political issues (Fiorina & Abrams, 2008; Heltzel & Laurin, 2020; Rubaltelli et al., 2023). Our finding that risk perceptions were highest among participants with egalitarian‐communitarian worldviews may have been because such individuals are typically more concerned about the plight of others and recognized, consistent with the literature, that people in the world's poorest regions are more likely to experience the greatest adverse effects from GPG (Cleland, 2013; Dake, 1991, 1992; Ezeh et al., 2012; Lacroix & Gifford, 2018).…”