Appealing to Individual Fears or Social Norms: How Can the Public Be Persuaded to Accept COVID-19 Vaccination through Risk Communication?

Fangfei Wang (), Sifan Zhang and Lei Lei ()
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Fangfei Wang: Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian 116024, China
Sifan Zhang: Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian 116024, China
Lei Lei: School of Journalism and Communication, Minzu University of China, Beijing 100081, China

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 21, 1-13

Abstract: In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, improving the public’s understanding of the increased efficacy and safety of the COVID-19 vaccines through scientific risk communication campaigns, promoting the public’s acceptance and willingness to receive COVID-19 vaccines, and forming collective actions at the social level will deeply impact on the effect of COVID-19 prevention in various countries, which is also a key factor that governments need to address urgently. Previous research on risk communication has mostly focused on microscopic perspectives of how to stimulate individual self-protection behaviors by awakening threat and efficacy perceptions; however, a lack of observation of social collective actions means there is a risk of failure regarding COVID-19 epidemic reduction and prevention. In this regard, this study was based on the issue of vaccination in the context of the COVID-19 epidemic through a highly regulated and controlled research experiment in China ( n = 165), which was designed to examine the impact of two risk communication frameworks, appealing to individual fears and appealing to social norms, on the public’s acceptance and recommendations of COVID-19 vaccines, thus outlining the path of action from individual protection to collective epidemic prevention. Both the “fear appeals” framework and the “social norms” framework were found to have a positive effect on the Chinese public’s vaccination acceptance. Specifically, social norms information may increase vaccination acceptance by enhancing the public’s perceptions of social responsibility, while fear appeals information may reduce their perceptions of threat and social pressure to get the vaccine. Female and highly educated groups were more likely to refuse to recommend vaccination after reading the risk communication information. These results can be a useful supplement to the theory and practice of risk communication.

Keywords: COVID-19 vaccination; risk communication; fear appeals; social norms (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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