Department of Sociology, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027;
Department of Sociology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2021 Dec 7;118(49). doi: 10.1073/pnas.2106481118.
Containing the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States requires mobilizing a large majority of the mass public to vaccinate, but many Americans are hesitant or opposed to vaccination. A significant predictor of vaccine attitudes in the United States is religiosity, with more-religious individuals expressing more distrust in science and being less likely to get vaccinated. Here, we test whether explicit cues of common religious identity can help medical experts build trust and increase vaccination intentions. In a preregistered survey experiment conducted with a sample of unvaccinated American Christians ( = 1,765), we presented participants with a vaccine endorsement from a prominent medical expert (NIH Director Francis Collins) and a short essay about doctors' and scientists' endorsement of the vaccines. In the common religious identity condition, these materials also highlighted the religious identity of Collins and many medical experts. Unvaccinated Christians in the common identity condition expressed higher trust in medical experts, greater intentions to vaccinate, and greater intentions to promote vaccination to friends and family than those who did not see the common identity cue. These effects were moderated by religiosity, with the strongest effects observed among the most religious participants, and statistically mediated by heightened perceptions of shared values with the medical expert endorsing the vaccine. These findings demonstrate the efficacy of common identity cues for promoting vaccination in a vaccine-hesitant subpopulation. More generally, the results illustrate how trust in science can be built through the invocation of common group identities, even identities often assumed to be in tension with science.
在美国控制 COVID-19 大流行需要动员绝大多数民众接种疫苗，但许多美国人对接种疫苗犹豫不决或持反对态度。在美国，宗教信仰是疫苗态度的一个重要预测因素，宗教信仰更虔诚的人对科学的信任度更低，接种疫苗的可能性也更低。在这里，我们测试了共同宗教身份的明确线索是否可以帮助医学专家建立信任并提高接种意愿。我们在一项针对未接种美国基督教徒（=1765）的预先注册调查实验中进行了测试，向参与者展示了一位著名医学专家（NIH 主任 Francis Collins）和一篇关于医生和科学家对疫苗的认可的短文。在共同宗教身份条件下，这些材料还突出了 Collins 和许多医学专家的宗教身份。与未看到共同身份线索的人相比，处于共同身份条件下的未接种基督教徒对医学专家的信任度更高，接种疫苗的意愿更强，向朋友和家人推广疫苗的意愿也更强。这些影响受到宗教信仰的调节，在最虔诚的参与者中观察到最强的影响，并且通过对与支持疫苗的医学专家的共同价值观的感知得到统计学上的证实。这些发现表明，共同身份线索在一个对疫苗犹豫不决的亚群体中促进疫苗接种的有效性。更普遍地说，这些结果说明了如何通过援引共同的群体身份来建立对科学的信任，即使这些身份通常被认为与科学存在冲突。
