The new coronavirus vaccine has been officially put into use for several months, and the public’s views on vaccines are very different. Some people can’t wait, eagerly line up for vaccination. There are also people who are unwilling to go to the vaccination site with concerns. Why is there such a big difference in people’s attitudes towards vaccines? Below, we will talk about this issue from the perspective of psychology.
Herd mentality
People are group animals. In many cases, vaccination is affected by the herd effect. Herd behavior refers to the behavioral tendency of individuals to change their opinions under the pressure of the group, and to reach a consensus with the majority. Social psychologist Gustave Le Pen once mentioned, “As soon as a person enters a group, IQ is severely reduced. In order to gain a sense of identity, individuals are willing to abandon right and wrong and use IQ in exchange for a sense of security. sense”. Convergence with the behavior of those around you is an important tendency rooted in human nature.
Ash is an American social psychologist who did an interesting experiment in 1952 to explore the influence of herd mentality. The experiment is actually very simple: Axi gives 12 line segments to let everyone measure the length and report their answers. Of course, the method of reporting is to report one by one, so the experimenter can hear the answers of people around. Axi asked his “accomplices” to deliberately say seven of the answers were wrong. It turned out that one-third of the subjects would succumb to obviously wrong answers.
Perhaps, we dare not make ourselves look like strangers in full view, and the choices of other people will put pressure on us in the group. When you find that everyone around you is queuing up to get the vaccine, and you even consider getting the vaccine as important to talk about, you will inevitably feel a little embarrassed if you haven’t been vaccinated, and you will be motivated to get the vaccine.
Negative preference
The frequency of receiving negative news also affects the behavior of vaccination. The occasional rumors about the side effects of the vaccine will make us less willing to take the initiative to vaccinate. Even if the media repeatedly emphasizes the safety of the vaccine, it is difficult to dispel the inner anxiety. This phenomenon stems from our negative preferences.
Negative preferences are an ancient survival mechanism that turns us into provocatives, focusing on the wrong things. Because in ancient times, a single mistake could kill oneself or even the entire tribe. Today, most errors pose less threat to humans, but the “negative mechanism” of the brain is still there, and we still pay more attention to negative information. After the “September 11” incident, many Americans felt that flying by plane was more risky, and they switched to traveling by car. This seems correct. After all, I just saw the footage of the terrorist attack on TV, and I had lingering fears. However, the benchmark ratio tells us that the probability of accidents on roads far exceeds that of airplane accidents. In other words, many people choose a more unsafe way to travel.
Negative preferences can also cause people to ignore long-term interests because of short-term interests. Some people only see that getting vaccinated will delay their working hours, and it is inevitable to go back and forth. This kind of “short-term visible” pain makes them avoid vaccination. This is still an irrational judgment. As we all know, compared to the painful experience of suffering from disease, serious sequelae, high medical expenses and work delays, a few hours of vaccination round-trip time is obviously more cost-effective.
Knowing the psychological tendency of negative preference, when you see that a friend has a serious adverse reaction after the vaccine, and an anxiety is generated in his heart, you might as well be aware of the extent to which this anxiety is negatively affected. Affected by preferences? This kind of self-reflection helps reduce unnecessary resistance and panic.
Psychological cost
In order to facilitate the vaccination work, the practice of collectively organizing vaccination with universities, communities and companies as units has greatly facilitated the public. This will not take up too much of everyone’s time, but also ensure the organization and discipline of the entire process, and reduce confusion. This is actually reducing the psychological cost of vaccination for the public.
We tend to prefer to do things that are easy to do. Of course, there are many other ways to reduce the psychological cost of vaccination. For example, the media’s repeated publicity on the effects of vaccines can gradually grab the public’s awareness and eliminate the strangeness of vaccines. People tend to like and are accustomed to the things they are familiar with, and tend to make negative comments on the unfamiliar things. The more familiar things can bring you a sense of security. News reports that promote vaccines for a long time can increase people’s awareness of vaccines. When the individual has more detailed knowledge, the resistance to vaccines will be weaker, and the psychological cost of vaccination will be reduced.
Normalization bias
Some people do not take the vaccine out of a “lucky mentality” and think that it is OK if they do not take the vaccine. This is called normalization bias in psychology. The concept is that when a disaster has occurred, people often do not realize that the disaster has occurred, and think that everything is normal. This delays the best time for self-help and leads to greater danger.
The normalization bias causes us not to deal with possible risks in advance, so that it is difficult to get out of our body when a disaster occurs. In history, there are countless tragedies caused by normalization errors, and the tragedy of Pompeii originated from this cognitive bias. We know that the ancient village of Pompeii was inundated by volcanic ash during a volcanic eruption. Almost 20,000 people in the city died. When you inspect the Pompeii site, you will find that people seem to be doing everyday things before they die and there is no reaction time at all. But the fact is that there are several hours between the eruption of the volcano and the arrival of the ash in Pompeii.
Another example is the wealthy Jews in Germany during the Nazi rule. In 1935, Hitler’s policy of persecuting Jews was very obvious. 100,000 Jews fled Germany, but 450,000 others chose to wait. They always felt that “maybe not so”-they were all sent to concentration camps to be persecuted.
When you fall into the normalization bias and think that if you don’t get the vaccine, you may “it won’t happen.” You might as well imagine the serious consequences of contracting the new coronavirus. This imagination of bad results can reduce the underestimation of risks and help us make rational choices.
Character influence
The initiative of vaccination is also highly correlated with personality traits. Generally speaking, people who actively vaccinate usually have high conscientious and pleasant qualities. Individuals with a high level of humanity are considerate of others everywhere, have a strong empathy ability, and value the feelings of others. For them, vaccination is an altruistic behavior that benefits public health. The conscientious people have a strong sense of responsibility and mission, and are willing to do what is necessary for the collective benefit. Vaccination has a high public value. It is a social responsibility for them, and it is a worthwhile thing to do.
It is worth mentioning that some people are unwilling to vaccinate because of a personality trait of “unwilling to contribute to the public interest.” There is a kind of “Machiavellian personality” in psychology, which refers to individuals who challenge conventional moral codes and use fraud and other means to manipulate others in order to achieve their goals. This type of person is indifferent and good at manipulating others, but values results but ignores morality. They are more willing to manipulate others to gain benefits, and will not care about the interests of the public and society. For such people, vaccination may be just a waste of time for themselves, and the social meaning behind vaccination cannot be seen.
Adjust psychology
If you are too worried about vaccination, you can try the following methods to make some adjustments to your mental state:
1. Seek social support: family and friends are the main source of social support, and encouragement from family and friends can make individuals more willing to accept vaccine.
2. Isolate negative information: In the Internet age, each of us lives in a cocoon of information we want to see, and the role of the media is self-evident. If you don’t look at your cell phone less, contact more living people in your life, and more contact nature, the anxiety and fear that can’t dissipate for a long time will quietly disappear.
3. Learn relaxation techniques: We can also use some relaxation techniques, such as deep breathing, mindfulness meditation and yoga. These simple techniques can help us relax and not be trapped by negative emotions. When we calm down, we can naturally make better judgments.
It is worth mentioning that learning psychological knowledge, mastering psychological self-help skills, and building a psychological mind will help to better cope with emergencies in the external world and maintain a stable mentality in an era of uncertainty.
