When taking action means accepting responsibility: Omission bias predicts parents' reluctance to vaccinate due to greater anticipated culpability for negative side effects

Gary D. Sherman, Beth Vallen, Stacey R. Finkelstein, Paul M. Connell, Wendy Attaya Boland and Kristen Feemster

Journal of Consumer Affairs, 2021, vol. 55, issue 4, 1660-1681

Abstract: Omission bias is the tendency to consider harm from inaction preferable to equivalent harm from action. In this work, we explored how individual differences in omission bias shape parental vaccine‐related decisions. Parents with a stronger omission bias showed greater negative emotional response to physician vaccine policy, placed lower trust in medical providers, and assigned a lower priority on vaccination. We observed this pattern of results even among parents who prioritize vaccination. Heightened anticipation of moral culpability for action (e.g., a child experiences vaccine side effects) and a diminished anticipation of moral culpability for possible harms of not acting (e.g., a child contracts a vaccine‐preventable disease) accounted for the effects we observed. These results suggest that parents' reluctance to vaccinate their children stems—in part—from the heightened perceived moral culpability that comes with taking action (versus not taking action).

Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/joca.12401

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:jconsa:v:55:y:2021:i:4:p:1660-1681

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0022-0078

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Consumer Affairs is currently edited by Sharon Tennyson

More articles in Journal of Consumer Affairs from Wiley Blackwell
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().