Abstract
Vaccine rejection is a problem severely impacting the global society, especially considering the COVID-19 outbreak. The need to understand the psychological mechanisms underlying the active involvement of the pro-vaccine and anti-vaccine movements is therefore very important both from a theoretical and practical perspective. This paper investigates the group identities of people with positive and negative attitudes towards vaccination, and their attitudes toward general science. A targeted sample study of 192 pro-vaccine and 156 anti-vaccine group members showed that the group identity of pro-vaccine individuals is higher than of anti-vaccine individuals. and that both pro-vaccine and anti-vaccine individuals had a positive attitude toward science. Results are discussed in context of the heterogeneity of motivations causing vaccine rejection and the relation between active involvement in online discussion and group identity.
Highlights
While appreciating the value of such approach, we propose to supplement it with the perspective of social psychology—taking into account group processes, and group identity
We found that group identity positively correlated with attitudes toward science in both the pro-vaccine and anti-vaccine groups (!)
We investigated how declared active involvement correlated with attitudes toward science
Summary
In recent years, a concerning decrease in public confidence in science has been observed, and a strong anti-scientific counterculture has emerged [1]. Based on their own sources of information and selectively ignoring research that contradicts their beliefs, many laypeople believe that they have the background to challenge established scientific facts, and there is no indication that this trend will slow or reverse in the near future [2, 3].
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