2016/08/30 by Russ Clay · 1 voice
Neuroscience · Social Sciences · #Misinformation and Its Impacts #Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment #Vaccine Coverage and Hesitancy
paper · doi:10.1177/1948550616664957
openalex publication_date 2016/08/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21
The present research utilized evolutionary theory to examine the relation between the behavioral immune system (i.e., disgust sensitivity) and attitudes about vaccines. The findings from the studies suggest that higher levels of dispositional disgust sensitivity is predictive of more negative attitudes toward vaccines. These findings are consistent with several recent publications and thus have broad implications for public health research associated with vaccines. In Study 1, participants reporting higher dispositional disgust sensitivity (specifically, contamination disgust) tended to report more negative attitudes about vaccines. Study 2 replicated this result in a nonstudent sample using additional measures of disgust sensitivity more closely associated with aversion to perceived sources of contamination. Study 2 also revealed that beliefs about the likelihood of contracting illness in the future were unrelated to vaccine attitudes. Implications for the observed relation between intuitive aversion to contamination and vaccine attitudes are discussed.