Some Underlying Psychological Mechanisms of the Anti Vaccination Movement
Abstract
The Anti Vaccination Movement grew out as a result of Andrew Wakefield’s claims regarding the link between autism and vaccines. Although his claims have been massively refuted, and it was later evident that he engaged in gross ethical misconduct, adherents to the Anti Vaccination Movement persist in their belief that vaccines cause autism. In this article, I explore three psychological mechanisms that partly explain why the Anti Vaccination Movement keeps its strength. First, conditioning: most parents of autistic children discover their child’s condition at around the same time they receive vaccines shots, and this facilitates the association of those two events in their minds. Second, modeling: the endorsement of the Anti Vaccination Movement by celebrities encourages people to believe in their mistaken theories. Third, agency detection: the Anti Vaccination Movement relies on conspiratorial thinking, and this way of thinking is based on the natural tendency of all humans to attribute agency to purposeless events.
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