Using moral foundations in government communication to reduce vaccine hesitancy

Abstract

Having a vaccine available does not necessarily imply that it will be used. Indeed, uptake rates for existing vaccines against infectious diseases have been fluctuating in recent years. Literature suggests that vaccine hesitancy may be grounded in deeply rooted intuitions or values, which can be modelled using Moral Foundations Theory (MFT). We examine the respective prominence of the MFT dimensions in government communication regarding childhood vaccinations and explore its effect on parents’ vaccine hesitancy. We measure the MFT dimension loading of the vaccination information brochures from the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) between 2011-2019 and connect this information with the electronic national immunisation register to investigate if the use of moral foundations in government communication has a measurable effect on vaccination uptake. We find the largest positive effect for the dimensions Authority/Subversion and Liberty/Oppression and suggestive evidence in favour of a small positive effect for Purity/Degradation. Conversely, Loyalty/Betrayal actually has a negative effect on vaccination rates. For the dimension Harm/Care, we find no significant effect. While Purity/Degradation and Harm/Care appear to be the two most frequently used moral foundations by RIVM, these dimensions have in fact no or only a minor effect on parents’ vaccine hesitancy. Reducing the use of these moral foundations may be the first step towards optimising government communication in this context. Instead, formulations activating the moral foundations Authority/Subversion and Liberty/Oppression appear to have positive effects on vaccination uptake.

Moral expressions, sources, and frames: Examining COVID-19 vaccination posts by facebook public pages

“…Discussing the leadership and legitimacy surrounding COVID-19 vaccines may get people's likes. This finding is consistent with a prior study ( Heine & Wolters, 2021 ), which shows that the authority value used in government communication has the largest positive effect on vaccination uptake. The 3 most active sources in mentioning authority value are others, governments, and NGOs.…”

Will you get vaccinated? Trade‐offs between purity, liberty and care predict attitudes towards Covid‐19 vaccination

“…Across three studies, we hypothesised that higher endorsement of purity and liberty would predict greater reluctance to receive Covid-19 vaccination. These foundations have been identified most often in previous research on moral foundation endorsement and vaccine hesitancy (Amin et al, 2017;Luz et al, 2019;Heine & Wolters, 2021;Nan et al, 2022), though not consistently. We also hypothesised that, though care may not be predictive when considered independently as has been found in some previous studies (Amin et al, 2017;Heine & Wolters, 2021), trade-offs between purity and liberty relative to care would predict greater Covid-19 vaccine reluctance.…”

“…A survey of Black Americans found that care and loyalty predicted lower vaccine hesitancy and more favourable attitudes towards the Covid-19 vaccine, while purity and liberty predicted greater hesitancy (Nan et al, 2022). A study looking at the efficacy of emphasising foundations in government communications, found similar null effects for care as Amin et al (2017), with the use of authority and liberty, and to a lesser extent purity, associated with vaccine uptake (Heine & Wolters, 2021). Other research has also linked disgust (an affective purity response) and vaccine reluctance (Luz et al, 2019).…”

“…On the other hand, growing anti‐vaccine rhetoric (Burki, 2020) emphasised ‘unnatural’ or unsafe contaminants in the vaccine itself (a concern for bodily purity) or concerns that vaccination programmes constitute corrupt agendas to erode personal freedom (a concern for liberty). Previous research has highlighted the role of moral values in influencing decisions to vaccinate with somewhat inconsistent effects (Amin et al., 2017; Heine & Wolters, 2021). The current context therefore presents a unique opportunity to explore how moral values relate to vaccination decisions as new vaccines are being developed and amid mass public health programmes to receive them.…”

Sociocultural and moral narratives influencing the decision to vaccinate among rheumatic disease patients: a qualitative study

“…For example, confidence, complacency, constraints, calculation, and collective responsibility are proposed to underpin vaccine uptake [ 32 ]. Additionally, recent studies of vaccine hesitancy among parents [ 23 , 33 ] and towards the COVID-19 vaccine specifically [ 24 ] have applied social psychological theories of morality to identify the key dimensions of moral judgment and decision-making.…”