The role of vulnerability to online misinformation and conspiracy beliefs in predicting vaccine scepticism

Description

The information landscape – e.g., news, government guidelines and conspiracy theories, has rapidly changed during the Covid-19 pandemic and played an active role in shaping the consumption and transmission of health information about Covid-19 worldwide. In turn, this may have impacted on collective actions and health behaviours such as intention to vaccinate, support for mandatory Covid-19 vaccination, etc. The current project investigated the role of vulnerability to online misinformation and conspiracy beliefs as antecedents of vaccine scepticism in three cultural contexts: Australia (N=412), low Covid-19 infection risk and high vaccine uptake, and Romania(N=435), high infection risk and low vaccine uptake (Study 1) and UK (N=400), high Covid-19 infection risk and high vaccine uptake (Study 2). We conceptualised vulnerability to online misinformation as low fake news recognition and low trust in science and tested a model where vaccine scepticism is predicted by high vulnerability to online misinformation and relevant conspiracy beliefs, and in turn it predicts intentions to vaccinate. Findings suggested our participants experienced an overall high level of vaccine scepticism which was predicted by vulnerability to online misinformation and conspiracy beliefs, independently of cultural context. Additionally, vaccine scepticism was a mediator for the relationship between vulnerability to online misinformation, conspiracy beliefs and intentions to vaccinate.

Period	4 Jul 2023
Event title	19th General Meeting of the European Association of Social Psychology 2023
Event type	Conference
Location	Krakow, PolandShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International