Department of Psychology, Auckland University of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand.
School of Psychology, The University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand.
BMC Psychol. 2024 Oct 14;12(1):550. doi: 10.1186/s40359-024-02048-2.
Vaccine hesitancy (the reluctance or refusal to vaccinate) poses a significant threat to public health worldwide, with declining vaccination coverage resulting in the resurgence of vaccine-preventable diseases (e.g., measles) in recent years. Despite efforts to combat vaccine hesitancy through information-based campaigns and other interventions, vaccine-hesitant attitudes persist. Given that such interventions likely expose individuals to information that conflicts with their own viewpoints about vaccination, cognitive flexibility - the ability to adapt one's thoughts, attitudes, beliefs, or behavior in response to changing information or environmental demands - may play a role in vaccine hesitancy.
The current study investigated the relationship between cognitive flexibility and attitudes towards vaccination in a sample of New Zealand residents (N = 601). Cognitive flexibility was measured using perseverative responses in the Wisconsin Card-Sorting Task, and vaccination attitudes were measured using an adapted version of the Multidimensional Vaccine Hesitancy Scale (MVHS). Linear regression was used with MVHS scores as the dependent variable and cognitive flexibility and sociodemographic variables (age, gender, ethnicity, education level, religion) as predictors.
Cognitive flexibility predicted personal barriers to vaccination (e.g.," vaccines go against my personal beliefs"), with participants with lower levels of cognitive flexibility reporting greater personal barriers. In contrast, there was no significant relationship between cognitive flexibility and external barriers to vaccination (e.g., "vaccines cost too much"). Additionally, religious participants reported overall higher levels of vaccine hesitancy than non-religious participants.
These findings join others demonstrating that individual differences in cognitive style are associated with attitudes towards vaccination, and tentatively suggest that interventions aiming to reduce vaccine hesitancy may be more effective if combined with techniques to increase cognitive flexibility. To be sure, future work is needed to test the causal relationship between cognitive flexibility and attitudes towards vaccination.
疫苗犹豫（即对接种疫苗的不情愿或拒绝）对全球公共卫生构成了重大威胁，由于疫苗接种率下降，近年来一些可通过疫苗预防的疾病（例如麻疹）再度出现。尽管通过基于信息的宣传活动和其他干预措施来努力对抗疫苗犹豫，但疫苗犹豫的态度仍然存在。鉴于此类干预措施可能使个人接触到与他们自己对疫苗接种的观点相冲突的信息，认知灵活性（即根据不断变化的信息或环境需求调整自己的思想、态度、信念或行为的能力）可能在疫苗犹豫中发挥作用。
本研究在新西兰居民样本中（N=601）调查了认知灵活性与对疫苗接种的态度之间的关系。使用威斯康星卡片分类测验中的坚持反应来衡量认知灵活性，并用多维疫苗犹豫量表（MVHS）的改编版来衡量疫苗接种态度。使用 MVHS 分数作为因变量，认知灵活性和社会人口统计学变量（年龄、性别、种族、教育水平、宗教）作为预测因子进行线性回归。
认知灵活性预测了个人对疫苗接种的障碍（例如，“疫苗与我个人的信仰背道而驰”），认知灵活性较低的参与者报告的个人障碍更大。相比之下，认知灵活性与疫苗接种的外部障碍（例如，“疫苗太贵了”）之间没有显著关系。此外，宗教参与者的总体疫苗犹豫程度高于非宗教参与者。
这些发现与其他研究结果一起表明，认知风格的个体差异与对疫苗接种的态度有关，并初步表明，如果将减少疫苗犹豫的干预措施与提高认知灵活性的技术相结合，可能会更有效地减少疫苗犹豫。当然，需要进一步的研究来测试认知灵活性和对疫苗接种的态度之间的因果关系。
