Message framing, partisanship, and popular support for COVID-19 vaccine mandate for all adults: Evidence from a preregistered survey experiment

Abstract Following the outbreak of COVID-19, the federal government in the United States required some population groups to be vaccinated. Other countries imposed even more comprehensive vaccination requirements. We conducted a preregistered randomized survey experiment that evaluated whether emphasizing the societal or economic benefits could shift popular support for a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for all adults. The experiment was embedded in a survey conducted in May 2022 on a sample of 1,199 registered voters in South Dakota. Participants were randomly assigned into a control group ( n = 394), communitarian frame group ( n = 403), or economic frame group ( n = 379). Results of difference-of-means tests and multivariate regression analyses showed that neither of the experimental treatments had a statistically significant impact on support for mandatory COVID-19 vaccination. We found that these attitudes were primarily driven by partisan self-identification. Our results underscored the political nature of attitudes toward the COVID-19 pandemic and particularly mandatory COVID-19 vaccination.