The Effects of Anti-Vaccine Conspiracy Theories on Vaccination Intentions

By D. Jolley, Karen M. Douglas. PLoS ONE, 2014

1,043 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The current studies investigated the potential impact of anti-vaccine conspiracy beliefs, and exposure to anti-vaccine conspiracy theories, on vaccination intentions. In Study 1, British parents completed a questionnaire measuring beliefs in anti-vaccine conspiracy theories and the likelihood that they would have a fictitious child vaccinated. Results revealed a significant negative relationship between anti-vaccine conspiracy beliefs and vaccination intentions. This effect was mediated by the perceived dangers of vaccines, and feelings of powerlessness, disillusionment and mistrust in authorities. In Study 2, participants were exposed to information that either supported or refuted anti-vaccine conspiracy theories, or a control condition. Results revealed that participants who had been exposed to material supporting anti-vaccine conspiracy theories showed less intention to vaccinate than those in the anti-conspiracy condition or controls. This effect was mediated by the same variables as in Study 1. These findings point to the potentially detrimental consequences of anti-vaccine conspiracy theories, and highlight their potential role in shaping health-related behaviors.

Subfields: Cognitive Neuroscience, Health, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/9c99d6963bd1dc7a22eae26751c5fae07044cac3

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Citations in the corpus

Mistrust and misinformation: A two-component, socio-epistemic model of belief in conspiracy theories (2020, background): “…providing factual counterinformation have not been found to be a particularly effective strategy under experimental conditions, especially in terms of increasing actual intentions to vaccinate where there may be a backfire effect (Jolley & Douglas, 2014b; Nyhan et al., 2014; Nyhan & Reifler, 2015).”
Inoculation theory in the post‐truth era: Extant findings and new frontiers for contested science, misinformation, and conspiracy theories (2021, background): “Research shows that exposure to such myths and anti‐vaccine conspiracies can fuel vaccine hesitancy and harm intentions to vaccinate (Dixon & Clarke, 2013; Jolley & Douglas, 2014).”
Conspiracy theories as barriers to controlling the spread of COVID-19 in the U.S. (2020, background): “Previous research has linked conspiracy beliefs with vaccination hesitancy (Hornsey et al., 2020; Jolley and Douglas, 2014).”
Anxious attachment and belief in conspiracy theories (2018, background): “For instance, some research suggests that conspiracy theories increase (rather than decrease) feelings of powerlessness (Jolley & Douglas, 2014a).”
Powerful Pharma and Its Marginalized Alternatives?: Effects of Individual Differences in Conspiracy Mentality on Attitudes Toward Medical Approaches (2018, background): “In addition, people who were confronted with anti-vaccination conspiracy theories were less willing to vaccinate themselves or their children (Jolley & Douglas, 2014), an effect mediated by feelings of powerlessness.”
Prevention is better than cure: Addressing anti‐vaccine conspiracy theories (2017, methodology): “As Jolley and Douglas (2014a) argued, “once the very idea of a conspiracy has been mentioned and taken root, even strong [anti-conspiracy] arguments may be unable to lead to behavioural action” (p. 8).”
Resolving the Puzzle of Conspiracy Worldview and Political Activism: Belief in Secret Plots Decreases Normative but Increases Nonnormative Political Engagement (2021, background): “Exposure to information supporting conspiracy theories decreases intentions to engage in politics and civic behaviors (Jolley & Douglas, 2014a, 2014b) but increases intentions to engage in everyday crime (Jolley et al., 2019), a finding interpretable as a quid pro quo reaction to the perceived…”