Opposition to voluntary and mandated COVID-19 vaccination as a dynamic process: Evidence and policy implications of changing beliefs

Katrin Schmelz and Samuel Bowles
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Katrin Schmelz: a Cluster of Excellence “The Politics of Inequality,” University of Konstanz, 78457 Konstanz, Germany;; b Thurgau Institute of Economics, 8280 Kreuzlingen, Switzerland;; c Santa Fe Institute, Santa Fe, NM 87501
Samuel Bowles: c Santa Fe Institute, Santa Fe, NM 87501

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2022, vol. 119, issue 13, e2118721119

Abstract: The challenge of securing adherence to public health policies is compounded when an emerging threat and a set of unprecedented remedies are not fully understood among the general public. The evolution of citizens’ attitudes toward vaccination during the COVID-19 pandemic offers psychologically and sociologically grounded insights that enrich the conventional incentives- and constraints-based approach to policy design. We thus contribute to a behavioral science of policy compliance during public health emergencies of the kind that we may increasingly face in the future. From early in the pandemic, we have tracked the same individuals, providing a lens into the conditions under which people’s attitudes toward voluntary and mandated vaccinations change, providing essential information for COVID-19 policy not available from cross-section data.

Keywords: public health policy compliance; crowding out intrinsic motivation; trust; cognitive dissonance; control aversion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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