Covid-19: Role models can help promote vaccination

Children can be one of the role models in encouraging their parents to get vaccinated against Covid-19, like Wika Winda (left), seen here helping her father Maslan Haimi register for the vaccine via the MySejahtera app. — FAIHAN GHANI/The Star

As governments around the world struggle to increase their vaccination numbers, new research suggests that the biggest factor in the success of Covid-19 inoculation campaigns is not what people are afraid of, but whom they look up to.

Your favourite football team and social media influencers, as well as school friends and neighbours, can all play a role in providing the necessary incentive for people to get vaccinated, according to a new study.

In the pandemic, it’s less our own personality or perceived fear of vaccination, but the behaviour of those around us that often ultimately decides whether we wear a face mask or get vaccinated, according to researchers at the Universities of Koblenz-Landau and Mannheim in Germany.

The scientists found that social norms have the strongest influence on whether people abide by rules or not.

“The decisive factor is how I perceive the behaviour of people close to me, rather than my own personality or any threat I perceive,” they say in the study published in the psychology journal Group Processes and Intergroup Relations.

The research could prove significant in the global vaccination effort, as it comes at a time when some countries are seeing a waning interest in vaccination after an initial wave of eagerness.

“Social norms are relatively powerful,” study co-author Stefan Janke from the University of Mannheim says.

“I draw them from my immediate environment; I pick them up in organisations, from friends and relatives.

“These are the champions of my local community who are good role models.”

Behavioural patterns were examined shortly after the first lockdowns in the spring of 2020.

Among other things, the research examined whether people adhered to physical-distancing rules and supported other people during the crisis.

This included, for example, helping neighbours and sewing masks.

This contrasted with hoarding and disobeying official distancing rules.

“Our results show that social norms in particular predict whether people will abide by the applicable rules and recommendations,” says social psychologist and study co-author Selma Rudert from the University of Koblenz-Landau.

Social norms arise primarily from behavioural patterns that people perceive in those close to them, e.g. in the family or among friends, she explains.

“If a person assumes that their family members or friends will abide by the rules of distance, the probability increases that the person will behave in the same way in the future.”

Especially in times of uncertainty and crisis, social norms make people feel safer and fulfil their need to belong.

“Most people strive to behave correctly and appropriately.

“The behaviour of others is typically informative of what is considered ‘correct’,” says Janke.

So what can this tell us about current efforts to vaccinate populations around the world?

While the research does not provide direct information about current vaccination readiness (be- cause it was collected during the first lockdown), “we nevertheless believe that the results are transferable,” Janke says.

That means if we want to motivate people to get vaccinated, we should not appeal to their sense of reason or even emphasise the threat posed by the coronavirus, the researchers say.

Instead, we need to get to their role models.

“Do good and talk about it,” is the general guideline, the researchers say, citing post-vaccine selfies on Instagram as a good example.

Celebrities, on the other hand, can also help to increase acceptance.

“But they have the disadvantage that they live in a completely different world and you can rarely identify with them sufficiently,” Janke says. – By Martin Oversohl/dpa