Psychological Reactance Theory and COVID-19 Vaccine Mandates: The Roles of Threat Magnitude and Direction of Threat

Abstract

The current study examines psychological reactance theory (PRT), focusing on the role of threat directness and threat magnitude in the context of a COVID-19 vaccine mandate. Students on two college campuses in the United States (N = 374) were informed that their university or the other university (i.e., threat directness manipulation) was considering a vaccinate mandate for the following semester that would or would not include sanctions for noncompliance (i.e., threat magnitude manipulation). Participants experienced significantly greater freedom threat perceptions when the mandate included sanctions compared to when it did not, but freedom threat perception did not differ when the mandate was on their own campus as to the other campus. An interaction effect was also observed in which perceived freedom threat and reactance was greatest among participants receiving an indirect (as opposed to direct) threat with sanctions. Findings are discussed with an emphasis on the theoretical contribution to PRT along with the practical implications for vaccine mandates.

Acknowledgments

The first author would like to thank Cabral A. Bigman for her guidance during earlier stages of this project.

Disclosure statement

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

Authors’ Note

Lauren Kriss, School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Wisconsin at Madison. Brian Quick, Department of Communication and the Carle Illinois College of Medicine University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Steve Rains and Juliana L. Barbati, Department of Communication, University of Arizona.

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Additional information

Funding

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