Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2023 Dec 31;19(1):2180217.
doi: 10.1080/21645515.2023.2180217. Epub 2023 Feb 27.

COVID-19 risk perception, cognitive dissonance, and vaccine hesitancy

Ozlem Equils  1 , Amonda Bakaj Berishaj  1 , Eric Stice  2 , Christopher da Costa  1   3
Affiliations

COVID-19 risk perception, cognitive dissonance, and vaccine hesitancy

Ozlem Equils et al. Hum Vaccin Immunother. .

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has shown that despite having high risk for severe disease, some individuals had low-risk perception and consequently they refused vaccination. This was more common among individuals with distrust in the government and the scientific organizations. Cognitive dissonance occurs when a person participates in an action that goes against one's beliefs. In order to reduce the dissonance, the individual often avoids the action. Recently, dissonance-based interventions have been shown to be effective in changing various health, environmental, and social behaviors. The impact of these interventions may persist for several years. Cognitive dissonance may be another mechanism for vaccine refusal among people with mistrust in the system. There is a need to investigate the role of cognitive dissonance in vaccine refusal and the effectiveness of dissonance-based interventions to reduce vaccine hesitancy among individuals with high risk for severe disease and low vaccination rates.

Keywords: COVID-19; cognitive dissonance; risk perception; vaccine hesitancy.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

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

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Gold JA, Rossen LM, Ahmad FB, Sutton P, Li Z, Salvatore P, Coyle J, Decuir J, Baack B, Durant T, et al. Race, Ethnicity, and Age trends in persons who died from COVID-19 — United States, May-August 2020. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. 2020;69:1517–2. doi:10.15585/mmwr.mm6942e1. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. McLaren J. Racial disparity in COVID-19 deaths: seeking economic roots with census data B.E. J Econ Anal. 2021;21(3):897–919. doi:10.1515/bejeap-2020-0371. - DOI
    1. Gollust SE, Vogel RI, Rothman A, Yzer M, Fowler EF, Nagler RH.. Americans’ perceptions of disparities in COVID-19 mortality: results from a nationally-representative survey. Prev Med. 2020;141:106278. doi:10.1016/j.ypmed.2020.106278. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Owens V, Saw HW. Black Americans demonstrate comparatively low levels of depression and anxiety during the COVID-19 pandemic. PLoS One. 2021;16(6):e0253654. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0253654. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Baumgaertner B, Ridenhour BJ, Justwan F, Carlisle JE, Miller CR. Risk of disease and willingness to vaccinate in the United States: a population-based survey. PLoS Med. 2020;17(10):e1003354. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed/1003354. - DOI - PMC - PubMed

Grants and funding

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