COVID-19 vaccine refusal is driven by deliberate ignorance and cognitive distortions

Abstract

Vaccine hesitancy was a major challenge during the COVID-19 pandemic. A common but sometimes ineffective intervention to reduce vaccine hesitancy involves providing information on vaccine effectiveness, side effects, and related probabilities. Could biased processing of this information contribute to vaccine refusal? We examined the information inspection of 1200 U.S. participants with anti-vaccination, neutral, or pro-vaccination attitudes before they stated their willingness to accept eight different COVID-19 vaccines. All participants—particularly those who were anti-vaccination—frequently ignored some of the information. This deliberate ignorance, especially toward probabilities of extreme side effects, was a stronger predictor of vaccine refusal than typically investigated demographic variables. Computational modeling suggested that vaccine refusals among anti-vaccination participants were driven by ignoring even inspected information. In the neutral and pro-vaccination groups, vaccine refusal was driven by distorted processing of side effects and their probabilities. Our findings highlight the necessity for interventions tailored to individual information-processing tendencies.