Imperfect Cognitions

Today's post is by Daniel Jolley, Lee Shepherd and Anna Maughan. Here they talk about their interesting research on vaccine hesitancy and anti-vaccine conspiracy theories, based on their recent paper in Psychology and Health . Daniel Jolley There are different conspiracy theories about vaccines. For example, some conspiracy theories suggest vaccines may be unsafe or ineffective. However, this is being hidden by pharmaceutical companies for profit. Other vaccine conspiracy theories suggest vaccines may be being used to control the population. In our latest research , we looked at what influences these conspiracy beliefs.  In three experimental studies, we explored how fear may influence people’s willingness to receive a vaccine. We also looked at how fear influences anti-vaccine conspiracy beliefs. We initially thought that fear would increase conspiracy beliefs, leading to people being less willing to receive a vaccine. However, the results from the first two studies (Studies ...

Today's post is by  Anne Meylan (University of Zurich) and Sebastian Schmidt  (University of Zurich) on their recent paper, " Refusing the COVID-19 vaccine: What’s wrong with that ?" ( Philosophical Psychology, 2023 ) . Anne is the director of the Zurich Epistemology Group on Rationality ( ZEGRa ) and Sebastian is a postdoc at ZEGRa. Anne Meylan This article analyses the cognitive attitudes of people who refuse the COVID-19 vaccine. We argue that vaccine refusers are responsible for their belief that they should not get vaccinated and that they are rational (although mistaken) in holding this belief. We support this conclusion by building on recent philosophical theories of responsibility for belief and of the rationality of attitudes. Our conclusion has further implications for public health policy: there is a reason not to use non-argumentative means, such as mandatory vaccination or certain kinds of nudging, to make rational vaccine refusers comply with vaccination re...

This post is by Elisabetta Lalumera (University of Bicocca, Milan). In this post she summarises a paper forthcoming in Rivista di Estetica, entitled: "Trust in healthcare systems and vaccine hesitancy." Healthcare systems can positively influence our personal decision-making and health-related behavior only if we trust them. What does it take for the public to trust a healthcare system? I propose that the trust relation is based on an epistemic component, epistemic authority, and on a value component, the benevolence of the healthcare system. I argue that it is also affected by the vulnerability of the pubblic on healthcare matters, and by the system’s credibility. My proposed analysis of public trust in health care systems can be used to better understand the phenomenon of vaccine hesitancy, the tendency to question vaccine policies, and to seek alternative vaccine schedules or refuse vaccination. Trust Trust in health care is a three-place relation, involvin...