Deconstructing the Tin-Foil Hat: The Role of Conspiratorial Beliefs and Disgust in Anti-Vaccination Attitudes

Eva MacFarland*, Natalie Shook, Holly Fitzgerald and Ilana Haliwa, Department of Psychology, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV, 26505

Field (Broad Category): Psychology (Behavioral & Social Sciences) 

Student’s Major: Psychology & Biology 

Despite the importance of vaccines for public health, coverage trends in recent years have shown growing animosity towards vaccination. Misconceptions about the safety and efficacy of vaccines have predominated the rationale for vaccine refusal. However, psychological factors that contribute to these beliefs are understudied. Disgust sensitivity and conspiratorial beliefs have individually been suggested as factors that shape anti-vaccination attitudes, but these factors have not been considered in combination. The present study will test a model that may elucidate the role of these variables and increase our understanding of why people form negative attitudes toward vaccination. A total of 500 participants will be recruited online through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (MTurk) and will complete measures assessing disgust sensitivity, dangerous world beliefs, conspiratorial beliefs, vaccination attitudes, and demographic variables. It is hypothesized that dangerous world beliefs will mediate the relation between disgust sensitivity and anti-vaccination attitudes, but conspiratorial beliefs will moderate this relation. That is, for those who harbor conspiratorial beliefs, greater disgust sensitivity will be associated with greater belief in a dangerous world, which will result in more negative views toward vaccines. For those who do not harbor conspiratorial beliefs, greater disgust sensitivity will be associated with greater beliefs in a dangerous world but will result in more positive views toward vaccines. It is necessary to identify a pathway through which anti-vaccination attitudes take shape in order to narrow efforts addressing misconceptions about vaccines. 

Funding: 

Program/mechanism supporting research/creative efforts: Capstone Course Within Department/p>