The world is finally seeing mass roll-outs of the long-awaited COVID-19 vaccines. Yet, skepticism around vaccination is prevalent. From appealing to emotions, sticking to logical arguments, mentioning families, the economy, or national safety – there are many types of messaging governing bodies can use to promote vaccination, but which ones are the most effective? EyeSee conducted a behavioral study to explore how different messaging affects the public attitude towards vaccination.

Can the right messaging help us reach herd immunity?

To achieve herd immunity in a community, we need around 80% of the population to be vaccinated. There are different communication strategies governments, organizations, and individuals can employ to swing these attitudes to a more positive one. For example, using logic and facts to address fear and misinformation. Still, behavioral science and advertising experience show us that emotions might work better in getting people to resonate with a message. That’s why our researchers set out to determine which messaging can prompt the vaccine-hesitant population to change their minds.

Study design: 4 types of statements, and the framing effect

The US-based study took place in the last week of February 2021, with 1500 respondents of different ages, genders, political parties, education levels, and areas of residence, and used survey and Reaction time measurements – a combination of behavioral and conventional methods to tap into the true attitudes of the respondents.

The study included 20 claims promoting vaccination, all of which were positioned on two axis – emotional-rational and personal-social. These represented four different quadrants of arguments in favor of the vaccine.

On top of this, we added a framing variable to see how the context or the underlying tone used to communicate information impacts the public attitude. We tested: a positive frame (focusing on the vaccination benefits), a negative frame (displaying adverse consequences of not getting the vaccine), and a neutral frame (staying completely middle-of-road).

A traditional survey was followed by a Reaction time measurement or RTM task. This behavioral method provides insight into how strong are the subconscious links between an attitude/belief and a certain attribute or statement. By measuring how fast the communicated info about a particular belief is being processed, we are able to understand the implicit, emotional certainty of the respondent. The quicker the response, the stronger the emotional certainty of the stated attitude. If a respondent takes a while to consider whether they like a statement saying they will be able to go back to concerts, maybe it is missing what is truly their motivation – protecting their loved ones.

Results: Emotions work best; stay away from negative framing

This study’s results show that promoting vaccination is best done with an appeal for protecting loved ones, and secondly, with a good rational argument on vaccine safety. Simpler and slightly vague statements with an emotional appeal and a call to action appear to work best.

When it comes to framing, in general, negatively framed messages fared the worst, especially so among respondents who are already anti-vaccination. Arguments presented in a positive or neutral light strongly resonated with people as well, regardless of their stance on vaccination – so sticking to a positive/neutral frame is the way to go.

Finding a statement that people agree with, be it with a gut feeling or logical reasoning, is vital. Trying to convince people by using statements that oppose their convictions is inefficient. Rational arguments work only with respondents who are not inclined to believing in broader conspiracy theories but are only concerned if this vaccine is tested enough.

Demographic differences and splits: Politics do make a difference

When we look at the demographic factors, affiliation to a political party is the strongest attitude driver. Apart from the split based on political ideologies, area of living and education level also influence one’s attitude towards immunization, while age and gender have a somewhat lower impact. Here are some key differences:

• Republicans are on avg. 15% less likely to get vaccinated than Democrats
• People living in rural areas are on avg. 10% less likely to get vaccinated than people from urban areas
• Level of education can affect the attitude towards vaccination up to 25%, with less-educated people being more skeptical about the vaccine
• Age can affect attitude towards the vaccination up to 9%: younger people are less worried about vaccine validity and less likely to believe in conspiracy theories
• Gender affects only around 5% attitude towards the vaccination: women are more concerned with vaccine safety and a lack of information, while men are less worried about the danger of the virus and more focused on vaccination as an opportunity to take advantage of people.

So, what makes a winning statement?

Any promotional action should be proactive and positive and remind people of protecting the things they cherish the most. Aside from this, uncontroversial rational statements might also have a good effect on people who are not prone to believing in conspiracy theories but doubt and fear vaccines due to their novelty. On the other hand, anti-vaxxers are hard to win over, but they also favor the same type of messaging as vaccine-positive respondents. Negative framing was by far the worst received by this group, which also makes sense since these messages remind them about the things they perceive they have lost due to an “imaginary, made-up threat.”

These are the top 5 statements based on likeability:

1. Let’s protect the ones we love
2. Eliminating COVID is possible – Vaccinate to protect yourself and your family
3. Vaccines save 3 million lives each year. It can save yours, too.
4. Vaccines have protected us for over 200 years – let’s get immunization going
5. Collective world effort delivered us a safe and fast vaccine.

Closing the (immunity) gap with effective messaging

Research like this is invaluable in appealing to different social groups and convincing them to get a COVID-19 shot. Like in other communication areas, the same message can have very different effects on different people, and in globally pivotal moments like these, devising specific strategies for each and testing to find the right approach is warranted.

Here, we see that statements that are hopeful in tone and calling on unity, solidarity and security resonated with people the most – both in the pro- and anti-vaccination part of the sample. Setting the stage with a solid emotional message concerning loved ones, followed by a more rational proof of its efficacy, might be just the right strategy for tipping the scale in favor of science.