Jab My Arm, Not My Morality: Perceived Moral Reproach as a Barrier to COVID-19 Vaccine Uptake

Abstract

Vaccinating the public against COVID-19 is critical for pandemic recovery, yet a large proportion of people remain unwilling to get vaccinated. Beyond known factors like perceived vaccine safety or COVID-19 risk, an overlooked sentiment contributing to vaccine hesitancy may rest in moral cognition. Specifically, we theorize that a factor fueling hesitancy is perceived moral reproach: the feeling, among unvaccinated people, that vaccinated people are judging them as immoral. Through a highly powered, preregistered study of unvaccinated U.S. adults (total N = 846), we found that greater perceived moral reproach independently predicted stronger refusal to get vaccinated against COVID-19, over and above other relevant variables. Of 22 predictors tested, perceived moral reproach was the fifth strongest—stronger than perceived risk of COVID-19, underlying health conditions status, and trust in scientists. These findings suggest that considering the intersections of morality and upward social comparison may help to explain vaccine hesitancy.