Conservative Media Use and Childhood COVID-19 Vaccine Information: A Test of the Contradictory Health Information Processing Model

Abstract

The Contradictory Health Information Processing (CHIP) model explains individuals’ processing of conflicting health claims. Tests of the model, while highly supportive, have been experimental and have relied upon low-familiar topics. Accordingly, a survey of parents with a child aged <12 years (N = 510) was conducted to test the application of the CHIP model to the controversial issue of childhood COVID-19 vaccination; such a vaccine had not yet been approved for this age group at the time of the survey. As hypothesized, reliance upon conservative news was associated with the perception that media information contradicted official guidance to vaccinate children, which led to issue uncertainty. Issue uncertainty prompted negative appraisals and decision uncertainty. Specifically, decision uncertainty partially mediated the effect of issue uncertainty on negative appraisals of vaccination, which in turn aroused threat emotions. However, threat emotions did not predict information-seeking, as specified in the model. This result may have been due to respondents having already decided to vaccinate their child, or not – a reflection of the partisan nature of the topic and the extensive coverage it had received. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

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Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.