Depicting Socio-Psychological Profile of COVID-19 Vaccination Hesitators and Rejecters

Abstract

Vaccination hesitation and rejection is one of the major health risks in the epidemics of any infectious diseases with profound implications for public health in general. In order to provide a deeper insight into vaccine hesitation and rejection, we collected the data from individuals who did not take the COVID-19 vaccine in Serbia (N = 534), since the recently ended pandemic also confirmed the importance of these issues. We analyzed the associations between future vaccination intention and several psychological constructs including conspiracy ideation, concerns about contracting a disease and having major health problems, conservatism, pro-vaccination immediate social surroundings and empathy. An increased possibility for future vaccination was negatively related to conspiracy ideation and conservatism measures but positively associated with vaccination support from important others and threat perception of infectious disease and health concerns. Conspiracy beliefs mediated the links from both conservatism and vaccination support from important others toward future vaccinations intention, while threat perception of infection mediated the link between vaccination support and the criterion measure. Present findings enable a deeper understanding of vaccine hesitation and rejection and provide guidelines for psychologists and public health workers for facilitating vaccination against infectious disease.