Is It All a Conspiracy? Conspiracy Theories and People’s Attitude to COVID-19 Vaccination

Abstract

A large body of research has found that people’s beliefs in conspiracy theories about infectious diseases negatively impacts their health behaviors concerning vaccination. Conspiracy belief-based vaccination hesitancy has become more rampant after the global outbreak of COVID-19. However, some important questions remain unanswered. For instance, do different versions of conspiracy theories—particularly conspiracy theories about the origin of the epidemic (e.g., that the SARS-CoV-2 leaked from a Wuhan virology laboratory or that the virus was of foreign origin) and the general theories about vaccine conspiracies (e.g., pharmaceutical companies covered up the danger of vaccines or people are being deceived about the effectiveness of vaccines)—have the same effect on vaccination intentions? Through a national survey adopting quota sampling in China, the current study tested the relationship between people’s conspiracy beliefs and their intention to receive the COVID-19 vaccination. The findings show that people’s embrace of conspiracy theories did indeed affect their intention to take COVID-19 shots. However, only conspiracy theories related to vaccines had a significant impact, while belief in more general theories about COVID-19 did not significantly affect vaccination intentions. People’s knowledge of vaccines (vaccine literacy) played an important role in this relationship. People with lower beliefs in vaccines conspiracy theories and higher levels of vaccine literacy were more likely to receive the COVID-19 vaccination.

Keywords

• COVID-19
• vaccination
• conspiracy theories
• vaccine literacy
• scientific literacy
• construal level theory