Debunking Vaccination Myths: Strong Risk Negations Can Increase Perceived Vaccination Risks
Debunking Vaccination Myths: Strong Risk Negations Can Increase Perceived Vaccination Risks
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DOI：
10.1037/a0027387
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发表时间：
2013-02-01
影响因子：
4.2
通讯作者：
Sachse, Katharina
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Betsch, Cornelia;Sachse, Katharina
目标：关于风险的信息往往是相互矛盾的，特别是在卫生领域。在互联网上可以找到大量关于疫苗不良事件（VAE）的奇怪信息;大多数是由反疫苗活动家发布的。卫生部门的一些行为者反对这些说法，用科学解释否定声称的风险。目前的工作的目标是找到最佳的方式来否定风险，以减少风险的看法。方法：在两个在线实验中，我们改变了风险否定的极端及其来源。对VAE概率的感知，其预期严重程度（两个变量均作为感知风险的指标）和疫苗接种意图。结果：奇怪的是，强烈表明“没有风险”的信息导致了比弱否定更高的感知疫苗接种风险。这一发现扩展了先前关于消极偏见的研究，该研究表明，说明风险存在的信息会降低风险感知，而否定风险存在的信息会增加这种感知。几个主持人也进行了测试，但是，效果发生独立的否定，收件人的参与，和态度的数量。只有信息来源的可信度与风险否定的极端性相互作用：对于可信来源（政府机构），强和弱风险否定导致相似的感知风险，而对于不太可信的来源（制药行业），弱否定导致感知风险低于强否定。结论：最佳的风险否定可能受益于温和的，而不是极端的配方作为一个来源的可信度可以有所不同。
Objective: Information about risks is often contradictory, especially in the health domain. A vast amount of bizarre information on vaccine-adverse events (VAE) can be found on the Internet; most are posted by antivaccination activists. Several actors in the health sector struggle against these statements by negating claimed risks with scientific explanations. The goal of the present work is to find optimal ways of negating risk to decrease risk perceptions. Methods: In two online experiments, we varied the extremity of risk negations and their source. Perception of the probability of VAE, their expected severity (both variables serve as indicators of perceived risk), and vaccination intentions. Results: Paradoxically, messages strongly indicating that there is "no risk" led to a higher perceived vaccination risk than weak negations. This finding extends previous work on the negativity bias, which has shown that information stating the presence of risk decreases risk perceptions, while information negating the existence of risk increases such perceptions. Several moderators were also tested; however, the effect occurred independently of the number of negations, recipient involvement, and attitude. Solely the credibility of the information source interacted with the extremity of risk negation: For credible sources (governmental institutions), strong and weak risk negations lead to similar perceived risk, while for less credible sources (pharmaceutical industries) weak negations lead to less perceived risk than strong negations. Conclusions: Optimal risk negation may profit from moderate rather than extreme formulations as a source's trustworthiness can vary.