Resolving the small-pockets problem helps clarify the role of education and political ideology in shaping vaccine scepticism
Entity
UAM. Departamento de SociologíaPublisher
The British Psychological SocietyDate
2021-03-14Citation
10.1111/bjop.12500
British Journal of Psychology 112.4 (2021): 992-1011
ISSN
0007-1269DOI
10.1111/bjop.12500Subjects
cultural cognition; identity-protective cognition; political ideology; rejection of science; vaccination hesitancy; SociologíaRights
©2021 The British Psychological SocietyAbstract
Understanding the factors associated with vaccine scepticism is challenging because of the ‘small-pockets’ problem: The number of highly vaccine-sceptical people is low, and small subsamples such as these can be missed using traditional regression approaches. To overcome this problem, the current study (N = 5,200) used latent profile analysis to uncover six profiles, including two micro-communities of vaccine-sceptical people who have the potential to jeopardize vaccine-led herd immunity. The most vaccine-sceptical group (1.14%) was highly educated and expressed strong liberal tendencies. This group was also the most sceptical about genetically modified crops and nuclear energy, and most likely to receive news about science from the Internet. The second-most vaccine-sceptical group (3.4%) was young, poorly educated, and politically extreme (both left and right). In resolving the small-pockets problem, the current analyses also help reconcile competing theoretical perspectives about the role of education and political ideology in shaping anti-vaccination views.
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Google Scholar:Hornsey, Matthew J.
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Edwards, Martin
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Lobera Serrano, Josep Antoni
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Díaz-Catalán, Celia
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Barlow, Fiona Kate
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