David Baxter PhD
Late Founder
Anti-Vaxxers May Think Differently Than Other People
PsychCentral.com
March 3, 2021
The researchers found that people higher in vaccine skepticism were less accurate in their estimations of how frequently these causes of death occur. Specifically, they found that higher vaccine skepticism was associated with an overestimation of rare events.
The researchers discovered that people higher in vaccine skepticism were less accurate in their estimations of mortality-related events and overestimated the negative events more than the neutral or positive events.
“My takeaway is that vaccine skeptics probably don’t have the best understanding of how likely or probable different events are,” said LaCour. “They might be more easily swayed by anecdotal horror stories.
“For example, your child can have a seizure from getting vaccinated. It’s extremely rare, but it is within the realm of possibility. If you were so inclined, you could follow Facebook groups that publicize extremely rare events. These cognitive distortions of anecdotes into trends are probably exacerbated by decisions to subscribe to statistically non-representative information sources.”
Source: Texas Tech University
PsychCentral.com
March 3, 2021
The researchers found that people higher in vaccine skepticism were less accurate in their estimations of how frequently these causes of death occur. Specifically, they found that higher vaccine skepticism was associated with an overestimation of rare events.
The researchers discovered that people higher in vaccine skepticism were less accurate in their estimations of mortality-related events and overestimated the negative events more than the neutral or positive events.
“My takeaway is that vaccine skeptics probably don’t have the best understanding of how likely or probable different events are,” said LaCour. “They might be more easily swayed by anecdotal horror stories.
“For example, your child can have a seizure from getting vaccinated. It’s extremely rare, but it is within the realm of possibility. If you were so inclined, you could follow Facebook groups that publicize extremely rare events. These cognitive distortions of anecdotes into trends are probably exacerbated by decisions to subscribe to statistically non-representative information sources.”
Source: Texas Tech University
