our moral values say a lot about our vaccination status

according to a new study, the vaccine-hesitant are more likely to be preoccupied by values of 'purity.'

by maija kappler

published sep 19, 2022

4 minute read

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4 minute read

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a new study aims to understand why vaccination rates vary so widely

almost all canadians — 82 per cent of the country's total population — have received at least their primary vaccine series. getty

in the two and a half years we’ve been dealing with covid — and, especially, the year and a half since vaccines became widely available — there’s been a lot of discussion about vaccine hesitancy. there are a number of logistical reasons why some people don’t get vaccinated: limited access to health care, for instance, or the inability to get time off work to get vaccinated. but why are so many people reluctant to use a safe, effective method that protects against the worst parts of a sometimes-deadly virus?

almost all canadians — 82 per cent of the country’s total population — have received at least their primary vaccine series. (meaning, for most people, two doses.) but in the u.s., that number is only 68 per cent. and vaccination rates vary wildly across different regions: 79 per cent of residents of warren county, new york have been fully vaccinated, the new york times reports, while the same is true of only 34 per cent of people living in donley county, texas.

a new study from the university of southern california is aiming to understand why that is — and researchers say it’s related to moral values.

“if you look at a map of the proportion of vaccinations across u.s. counties, you find very stark differences across counties, across regions and across states,” nils karl reimer, one of the study’s co-authors, told usc’s news outlet. “our goal is to interrogate why these differences in political ideology coincide with differences in vaccination rates. we know already that, especially in the united states, conservatives and liberals endorse different values.”

the moral foundations theory

the study, published this week in american psychologist, found that people with lower vaccination rates have moral values about purity. people with higher vaccination rates, meanwhile, have moral values about fairness.

“moral values help explain these differences,” reimer said, “above and beyond the well-known variables of political ideology and structural barriers.”

the study uses the moral foundations theory, a way of thinking first created in 2004 by a group of several psychologists who specialize in social and cultural ideas. the theory holds that there are five (or six) major “foundations” of moral reasoning, and that different people and different cultures and subcultures prioritize the six ideas in different ways. the six foundations — or ideas — that people might create a moral outlook around, include: care/harm (which values kindness and nurturing), fairness/cheating (which values justice, rights and autonomy), loyalty/betrayal (which values patriotism and self-sacrifice), authority/subversion (which values leadership, followership and deference to authority), and sanctity/degradation (which values bodily autonomy). some psychologists include a sixth foundation: liberty/oppression (which values independence and fosters resentment against people or forces that restrict liberty).

purity vs. loyalty

using data from yourmorals.org, an online crowdsourced platform that collects an array of psychological data, and data about vaccination rates from the centers for disease control and prevention, researchers analyzed data about vaccination rates and moral values by county. they found that values traditionally associated with conservatism were also associated with lower vaccination rates.

the study found that counties that prioritized “purity” — from the foundation of sanctity/degradation — were 0.8 times less likely to be vaccinated. that foundation is shaped by psychological ideas of disgust and contamination, the moral foundations website explains. that foundation is held by people who want to “live in an elevated, less carnal, more noble way,” and “underlies the widespread idea that the body is a temple which can be desecrated by immoral activities and contaminants (an idea not unique to religious traditions).”

the most significant part of this group’s opposition to vaccination “was a desire for bodily and spiritual purity,” reimer said. “endorsing these beliefs is related to all kinds of opinions such as being opposed to non-mainstream sexual practices or immigration.”

meanwhile, areas that prioritize “loyalty” were 1.14 times more likely to have high vaccination rates. the tendency towards loyalty, the moral foundations site explains, “is related to our long history as tribal creatures able to form shifting coalitions.” it’s a foundation that “is active anytime people feel that it’s ‘one for all, and all for one.'”

this came as a surprise to researchers, as loyalty is usually a conservative value. but they also found that loyalty was only associated with high vaccination rates when the other moral values stayed the same.

“the loyalty finding is quite surprising because there is a lot of rhetoric about anti-vaccination among conservatives. however, what we’re showing is that typical conservatives do not tend to be anti-vaxxers,” one of the study’s co-authors morteza dehghani also told usc’s news outlet. “the anti-vaxxers tend to be not high on loyalty, but high on purity. these include conservatives who are low on loyalty, and also liberals who tend to prioritize purity concerns, most likely focusing on bodily aspects of purity contamination (‘my body is a temple and it should not be contaminated’).”

reimer added that “conservatism is a constellation of different beliefs that don’t always belong together logically.”

the researchers hope that the study can help with public health messaging to encourage vaccination.

“in regions high in purity, they suggest communications emphasizing the vaccine’s ability to protect from contaminating disease to better appeal to vaccine skeptics,” the outlet says. maybe focusing on the damage or “contamination” covid can wreak on the body could help with vaccine skeptics, for instance — or focusing on how vaccines boost our body’s natural immune response.

maija kappler is a reporter and editor at healthing. you can reach her at mkappler@postmedia.com

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