Understanding personalized persuasion strategies in implicit attitudes towards the COVID-19 vaccine: the moderating effects of personality traits based on an ERP study

Abstract

Abstract Prior research has shown that attitudes possess an implicit dimension that is crucial for understanding behavioral decisions. Personality traits, such as high need for cognition (NFC) and high need for affect (NFA), contribute to the formation of explicit and implicit attitudes through distinct routes, influencing the consistency between implicit and explicit attitudes. We employ Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) to examine how personality differences affect implicit attitudes and the efficacy of personalized matching in the context of COVID-19 vaccination. Phase 1 of the study explores whether participants with high need for cognition or high need for affect display varying levels of consistency between their implicit and explicit attitudes. After controlling for pre-existing positive explicit attitudes towards the COVID-19 vaccine, we discovered that participants with high NFC exhibit a more consistent attitude system, while those with high NFA do not. Phase 2 of the study reveals that personalized matching does not ensure a corresponding enhancement in persuasion, as it can influence people’s attitudes via different psychological processes based on their level of elaboration. These findings offer new insights into the factors driving COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy and the effectiveness of personalized persuasion strategies at the individual implicit cognitive level. Such understanding can assist in devising communication strategies for future vaccination promotion efforts.