Don’t Try to Change Minds – Change Behaviour

Quick Hits
Brief research updates from the cognitive sciences

Don’t try to change minds but simply change behaviour is the result a group of researchers have come to with regard to vaccinations.

This might sound a bit strange as there had been a lot of shouting over vaccinations during the pandemic – but ironically not that much before. And there seems to be a prevailing sense that we should educate people to try to convince them to take the vaccination, any vaccination at that.

Changing beliefs would be part of a change process of changing antecedents, the things that come before the behaviour. Sounds like a good plan, on paper at least. But Brewer et al. from the University of Colorado conducted a comprehensive scientific review of the academic literature around the psychology of vaccinations and came to a different conclusion.

They found that simply focusing on the behaviour and making this easier was the most effective way to increase vaccination rates. This could be through simple things like reminders, help making appointments, and simply taking away as many barriers as possible.

Obviously, some people will still resist. And the research has shown that trying to change beliefs is very hard, ineffective, and even if you can do it, uptake is still very low.

When it comes to resistance, they found the best way to counter it is to simply reiterate the facts rather than try some clever way to convince someone. The other thing that contributes to hesitancy is conflicting information – so get the facts straight and give clear and consistent information.

The final thing they found is that social influence was also strong – so if your peer group are getting vaccinated then the chances that you will too are much higher.

So, to get people to get their jabs COVID or not:

Make it easy
Give clear consistent information
Use social groups where possible

Easy peasy, eh!?

Reference

Noel T. Brewer, Gretchen B. Chapman, Alexander J. Rothman, Julie Leask, Allison Kempe.
Increasing Vaccination: Putting Psychological Science Into Action.
Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 2018; 18 (3): 149
DOI: 10.1177/1529100618760521