Cultural Diversity in Preventative Health Behavior: An Abstract

Abstract

There is much diversity globally, as often captured by cross-cultural consumer research. However, cultural variation in empathy has been less studied. Cultural differences in empathy may provide clues for encouraging preventative health behavior. The present research looks at the relationships between empathic concern and perspective-taking on vaccination acceptance. These relationships are modeled at the national level to provide insight on factors that might help to promote preventative health behaviors on a global scale, including vaccination acceptance. Empathy consists of both empathic concern and perspective-taking. Empathic concern is the more affective component—feelings of concern for the wellbeing of others—while perspective-taking is the more cognitive component—thinking about things from the perspective of others. Higher perspective-taking may enhance understanding and acceptance of information about herd immunity, increasing vaccination uptake. Empathic concern is associated with altruism and prosocial health behaviors, such as handwashing, and might also promote vaccination uptake. Data on the public’s willingness to accept COVID-19 vaccination was retrieved from the COVID-19 Beliefs, Behaviors, and Norms Survey (Collis et al., 2022). This survey was implemented by John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Center for Communication Programs with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the World Health Organization, and Facebook’s Data for Good. The survey assessed participant demographics and beliefs, and behaviors related to COVID-19. Data on empathic concern and perspective-taking across countries was retrieved from Chopik et al. (2017). Model results show that vaccination acceptance rates are higher among participants from countries higher in empathic concern, such as Ecuador, Peru, and Taiwan. Vaccination acceptance rates are marginally higher among participants from countries higher in perspective-taking, such as Italy, India, and Singapore. Based on these results and considering that empathic concern is the more affective component of empathy while perspective-taking is the more cognitive component, it may be the case that vaccination acceptance is better encouraged using emotional versus rational appeals. However, this remains an open question in need of direct empirical support, as is the more general question of how to encourage concern for the well-being of others.