COVID-19 Conspiracy Beliefs and Vaccination Intentions among Social Media Users

Gemenis Kostas ()
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Gemenis Kostas: Cyprus University of Technology, Limassol, Cyprus

Statistics, Politics and Policy, 2022, vol. 13, issue 3, 279-296

Abstract: More than a year after the introduction of vaccines against COVID-19, inoculation remains inconsistent and variable across countries. In this paper, we introduce a multi-item scale of COVID-19 related misinformation, skepticism, and conspiracy theories and investigate the effects of these beliefs on vaccine hesitancy. We report findings from a survey in Greece where participants were recruited via paid advertising on Facebook and the study sample was adjusted for demographic variables using a nationally representative reference sample. We show that the endorsement of COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs is the primary factor driving vaccine hesitancy, far exceeding the effect of all other demographic and attitudinal variables, including health status. Furthermore, a pre-registered randomized survey experiment showed that the effect cannot be attributed to respondents’ exposure to the COVID-19 conspiracy theory questions of the survey. The paper concludes by discussing potential public policy implications for combating misinformation and promoting health literacy among social media users.

Keywords: COVID-19; Facebook; vaccine hesitancy; conspiracy beliefs (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bpj:statpp:v:13:y:2022:i:3:p:279-296:n:3

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DOI: 10.1515/spp-2022-0005

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