Can Altruistic Emotions Promote Vaccine Advocacy? Examining the Use of Empathy and Elevation in Vaccine Messages

Abstract

This study examines the effectiveness of evoking other-oriented emotions in vaccine messages to promote vaccine advocacy behaviors. A between-subject experiment with a parent sample was conducted, in which portrayals of a victim exemplar (someone who is suffering from the consequence of vaccine hesitancy) and a moral exemplar (someone who is selflessly helping others) were varied. Results showed that the victim exemplar led to greater empathy, and the moral exemplar led to greater elevation, both of which predicted vaccine advocacy responses. Implications of the findings and future directions were discussed.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ Participants were asked if they commit to provide their thoughtful and honest answers to the questions in the survey. Response options include “I will provide my best answers,” “I will not provide my best answers,”, and “I can’t promise either way.” Only participants who selected the first option were presented with the consent form.

² The stimuli were initially designed with an additional manipulation, the ingroup-outgroup status of the exemplar. The ingroup exemplar was portrayed to be American (from Saint Paul, Minnesota, where a measles outbreak occurred shortly before the study took place), and the outgroup exemplar an Australian (from Perth). Based on previous literature, we expected empathy to be moderated by group status, in contrast to elevation. However, perceived social distance measured for the ingroup victim exemplar (M = 4.93, SD = 1.32) was not significantly different from the outgroup victim exemplar (M = 4.77, SD = 1.06), nor did they differ in the levels of empathy or elevation, indicating a failed manipulation. Thus, we collapsed the ingroup and outgroup conditions and only present the results from the moral vs. victim exemplar manipulation.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the OSU School of Communication’s Internal grant [TeSoC.]