Mandates likely work to increase vaccine uptake

 

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/932363

 

 News Release 21-Oct-2021
Rather than causing a backlash, vaccination requirements will succeed at getting more people inoculated, according to research from PIK Professor Dolores Albarracín and colleagues at Penn.
Peer-Reviewed Publication
University of Pennsylvania

 

Though almost 190 million people in the United States are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, that’s less than 60% of the country’s population. To increase that number, the federal government set in motion requirements that businesses with 100-plus employees mandate the vaccine.  

Some headlines decried such a move, saying it would hamper, not help the effort. But new research from a University of Pennsylvania team shows that such fears are unfounded. Rather than causing a backlash, the mandates strengthen vaccination intentions, results the researchers published in the journal Scientific Reports.

“Our experiments show very clearly that these requirements do not have any negative effects on vaccination intentions,” says Dolores Albarracín, the Alexandra Heyman Nash Penn Integrates Knowledge University Professor with appointments in the Annenberg School for Communication and the School of Nursing. “And, actually, they have positive effects across various ethnic groups and for people who have a tendency to oppose anything seemingly forced on them,” what’s known as psychological reactance, she says. 

-----