| Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2402714 | Vaccine | 2012 | 8 Pages |
The tenets of fuzzy-trace theory, along with prior research on risk perception and risk communication, are used to develop a process model of vaccination decisions in the era of Web 2.0. The theory characterizes these decisions in terms of background knowledge, dual mental representations (verbatim and gist), retrieval of values, and application of values to representations in context. Lack of knowledge interferes with the ability to extract the essential meaning, or gist, of vaccination messages. Prevention decisions have, by definition, a status quo option of “feeling okay.” Psychological evidence from other prevention decisions, such as cancer screening, indicates that many people initially mentally represent their decision options in terms of simple, categorical gist: a choice between (a) a feeling-okay option (e.g., the unvaccinated status quo) versus (b) taking up preventive behavior that can have two potential categorical outcomes: feeling okay or not feeling okay. Hence, applying the same theoretical rules as used to explain framing effects and the Allais paradox, the decision to get a flu shot, for example, boils down to feeling okay (not sick) versus feeling okay (not sick) or not feeling okay (sick, side effects, or death). Because feeling okay is superior to not feeling okay (a retrieved value), this impoverished gist supports choosing not to have the flu vaccine. Anti-vaccination sources provide more coherent accounts of the gist of vaccination than official sources, filling a need to understand rare adverse outcomes.
► Based on fuzzy-trace theory, a new psychological model of vaccination decisions is introduced. ► Effects of background knowledge, dual mental representations (verbatim and gist), retrieval of values, and application of values are predicted. ► The model explains how anti-vaccination messages proliferate in Web 2.0 due to meaning threats and plausibility of anti-vaccination beliefs. ► Anti-vaccination sources provide more coherent narratives of the gist of vaccination, filling a need to understand rare adverse outcomes.
