Social norms, political polarization, and vaccination attitudes: Evidence from a survey experiment in Turkey

Mustafa Kaba, Murat Koyuncu, Sebastian Schneider and Matthias Sutter

European Economic Review, 2024, vol. 168, issue C

Abstract: This paper examines vaccination as a descriptive social norm in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. Using a large-scale survey experiment in Turkey, we first elicit respondents’ vaccination attitudes and show that political affiliation is a strong predictor of it. We then use economic games to measure the extent of outgroup discrimination induced by respondents’ attitudes towards vaccination. We find that while both pro- and anti-vaxxers discriminate against each other substantially, the pro-vaxxers discriminate more than the anti-vaxxers do. This polarization intensifies when pro- and anti-vaxxers perceive a political difference between them. Using randomized informational treatments, we show that a reminder or priming of external threats, appealing to a broadly shared social identity, might mitigate such outgroup discrimination.

Keywords: Social norms; Outgroup discrimination; Polarization; Vaccination attitudes; Experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C9 D01 D9 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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Working Paper: Social Norms, Political Polarization, and Vaccination Attitudes: Evidence from a Survey Experiment in Turkey (2023)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:eecrev:v:168:y:2024:i:c:s0014292124001478

DOI: 10.1016/j.euroecorev.2024.104818

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