An Online Experiment Evaluating the Effects of Social Endorsement Cues, Message Source, and Responsibility Attribution on Young Adults’ COVID-19 Vaccination Intentions

Abstract

Adopting the theory of planned behavior framework, this online experiment investigated the effects of social endorsement cues, message source, and responsibility attribution on young adults’ perceptions of COVID-19 vaccination and intentions to get vaccinated. Four major findings were identified. First, social endorsement cues positively affect attitude, subjective norms, and vaccination intentions. Second, individuals perceive an expert source as the most credible, but a media outlet source results in the most positive subjective norms. Third, responsibility attributions do not generate significant effects on the dependent variables. Finally, social endorsement cues and message source both have some interaction effects with perceived susceptibility to COVID-19 on message outcomes.