University of California, Merced, USA.
University of Washington, USA.
Soc Sci Med. 2022 Oct;310:115275. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2022.115275. Epub 2022 Aug 13.
A movement of parents refusing vaccines for their children has contributed to increasingly large outbreaks of diseases that are preventable by vaccines. Research has identified multiple factors that relate to parents' vaccination behaviors (i.e., whether not they vaccinate their children), including their beliefs about vaccines' safety and utility and their trust in those who recommend vaccines. Here we examine the role of more fundamental psychological processes that may contribute to multiple vaccine-related beliefs and behaviors: cognitive associations.
Using a large sample of U.S. parents (pre-COVID-19), we investigated parents' associations between vaccines and helpfulness/harmfulness, as well as between the self and vaccines (vaccine identity), and their relation to parents' beliefs about vaccine safety and utility, trust in authorities' vaccine recommendations, and prior vaccination refusal for their children. To capture a more complete understanding of people's associations, we examined both explicit associations (measured via self-report) and implicit associations (measured by the Implicit Association Test).
Both implicit and explicit associations correlated with beliefs, trust, and vaccination refusal. Results from structural equation models indicated that explicit vaccine-identity and vaccine-helpfulness associations and implicit vaccine helpfulness associations were indirectly related to vaccination refusal via their relation with vaccine beliefs.
Collectively, study findings suggest that vaccine associations-especially those related to helpfulness/harmfulness-may serve as psychological building blocks for parental vaccine beliefs and behaviors.
家长拒绝为孩子接种疫苗的运动导致可通过疫苗预防的疾病爆发越来越多。研究已经确定了与父母接种疫苗行为（即是否为孩子接种疫苗）相关的多个因素，包括他们对疫苗安全性和有效性的信念，以及对推荐疫苗的人的信任。在这里，我们研究了可能与多种疫苗相关的信念和行为相关的更基本的心理过程的作用：认知联想。
我们使用了大量的美国父母（新冠疫情前）样本，调查了父母对疫苗的有益性/有害性的联想，以及他们自己与疫苗之间的联想（疫苗身份），以及这些联想与他们对疫苗安全性和有效性的信念、对权威机构疫苗推荐的信任，以及他们之前为孩子拒绝接种疫苗的关系。为了更全面地了解人们的联想，我们既考察了明确的联想（通过自我报告来衡量），也考察了内隐联想（通过内隐联想测验来衡量）。
内隐和外显联想都与信念、信任和疫苗接种拒绝率相关。结构方程模型的结果表明，外显的疫苗身份和疫苗有益性联想以及内隐的疫苗有益性联想通过与疫苗信念的关系间接与疫苗接种拒绝率相关。
总的来说，研究结果表明，疫苗联想——尤其是那些与有益性/有害性相关的联想——可能是父母疫苗信念和行为的心理基石。
