The Influence of Vaccine-critical Websites on Perceiving Vaccination Risks
Top Cited Papers
- 26 March 2010
- journal article
- Published by SAGE Publications in Journal of Health Psychology
- Vol. 15 (3), 446-455
- https://doi.org/10.1177/1359105309353647
Abstract
This large-scale Internet-experiment tests whether vaccine-critical pages raise perceptions of the riskiness of vaccinations and alter vaccination intentions. We manipulated the information environment (vaccine-critical website, control, both) and the focus of search (on vaccination risks, omission risks, no focus). Our analyses reveal that accessing vaccine-critical websites for five to 10 minutes increases the perception of risk of vaccinating and decreases the perception of risk of omitting vaccinations as well as the intentions to vaccinate. In line with the ‘risk-as-feelings’ approach, the affect elicited by the vaccine-critical websites was positively related to changes in risk perception.Keywords
This publication has 19 references indexed in Scilit:
- Risk Perception and AffectCurrent Directions in Psychological Science, 2006
- The Functions of Affect in Health Communications and in the Construction of Health PreferencesJournal of Communication, 2006
- Qualitative Analysis of Mothers' Decision-Making About Vaccines for Infants: The Importance of TrustPediatrics, 2006
- The Sleeper Effect in Persuasion: A Meta-Analytic Review.Psychological Bulletin, 2004
- Antivaccination activists on the world wide webArchives of Disease in Childhood, 2002
- The Inclusion of Patient Testimonials in Decision AidsMedical Decision Making, 2001
- Risk as feelings.Psychological Bulletin, 2001
- Confirmation Bias: A Ubiquitous Phenomenon in Many GuisesReview of General Psychology, 1998
- Risk Perception and Self-Protective BehaviorEuropean Psychologist, 1996
- Stalking the elusive "vividness" effect.Psychological Review, 1982