Geniole Shawn N, Bird Brian M, Witzel Alayna, McEvoy Jordan T, Proietti Valentina
Department of Psychology, University of the Fraser Valley, 33844 King Road, Abbotsford, British Columbia, V2S 7M8, Canada.
Department of Psychology, Simon Fraser University, 8888 University Drive, Burnaby, British Columbia, V5A 1S6, Canada.
Comput Human Behav. 2022 Jun;131:107218. doi: 10.1016/j.chb.2022.107218. Epub 2022 Feb 1.
Despite global efforts to rapidly distribute COVID-19 vaccines, early estimates suggested that 29-35% of the population were hesitant/unwilling to receive them. Countering such vaccine hesitancy is thus an important priority. Across two sets of online studies (total = 1584) conducted in the UK before (August-October 2020) and immediately after the first effective vaccine was publicly announced (November 10-19, 2020), brief exposure (<1 min) to vaccination memes boosted the potentially life-saving intention to vaccinate against COVID-19. These intention-boosting effects, however, weakened once a COVID-19 vaccine became a reality (i.e., after the announcement of a safe/effective vaccine), suggesting meme-based persuasion may be context-dependent. These findings thus represent preliminary evidence that naturally circulating memes may-under certain circumstances-influence public intentions to vaccinate, although more research regarding this context-specificity, as well as the potential psychological mechanisms through which memes act, is needed.
尽管全球都在努力迅速分发新冠疫苗，但早期估计显示，有29%至35%的人口对接种疫苗犹豫不决或不愿意接种。因此，应对这种疫苗犹豫情绪是一项重要的优先任务。在英国于首次有效疫苗公开宣布之前（2020年8月至10月）和之后立即（2020年11月10日至19日）进行的两组在线研究（总计1584人）中，短暂接触（<1分钟）疫苗主题梗图增强了接种新冠疫苗这一可能挽救生命的意愿。然而，一旦新冠疫苗成为现实（即安全/有效疫苗宣布之后），这些意愿增强效果就会减弱，这表明基于梗图的劝服可能依赖于具体情境。因此，这些发现代表了初步证据，即自然传播的梗图在某些情况下可能会影响公众接种疫苗的意愿，不过还需要更多关于这种情境特异性以及梗图发挥作用的潜在心理机制的研究。
