Abstract

A substantial number of people refused to get vaccinated against COVID-19, which prompts the question as to why. We focus on the role of individual worldviews about the nature and generation of knowledge (epistemic beliefs). We propose a model that includes epistemic beliefs, their relationship to the Dark Factor of Personality (D), and their mutual effect on the probability of having been vaccinated against COVID-19. Based on a US nationally representative sample (N = 1268), we show that stronger endorsement of post-truth epistemic beliefs was associated with a lower probability of having been vaccinated against COVID-19. D was also linked to a lower probability of having been vaccinated against COVID-19, which can be explained by post-truth epistemic beliefs. Our results indicate that the more individuals deliberately refrain from adhering to the better argument, the less likely they are vaccinated. More generally, post-truth epistemic beliefs pose a challenge for rational communication.

Details

Title
Post-truth epistemic beliefs rooted in the Dark Factor of Personality are associated with higher COVID-19 vaccination refusal
Author
Rudloff, Jan Philipp 1 ; Hutmacher, Fabian 1 ; Appel, Markus 1 

 University of Würzburg, Psychology of Communication and New Media, Human-Computer-Media Institute, Würzburg, Germany (GRID:grid.8379.5) (ISNI:0000 0001 1958 8658) 
Pages
4254
Publication year
2023
Publication date
2023
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
e-ISSN
20452322
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
2786746607
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2023. This work is published under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.