Description
Most interventions aiming at changing vaccination behavior treat decision makers as passive receivers of information. In contrast, evidence shows that active engagement with information has a greater effect on vaccination intention. We explore how decision makers actively seek for information when faced with a vaccination decision.We developed a new paradigm to directly observe and quantitatively measure participants’ seeking behavior in an online format: Participants faced with a fictitious vaccination decision could freely browse through an information catalogue that integrated the instructions for an interactive and incentivized vaccination game. Seeking behavior was measured by time spent searching and the amount of information looked at.
In a pre-registered online study (N = 381), we tested the paradigm, while assessing perceived knowledge and attitudes towards vaccination and information seeking.
We found that information seeking increased knowledge: The more participants searched, the higher was their perceived knowledge afterwards. In addition, we found that participants who decided against vaccination had significantly worse attitudes toward information seeking.
The results show that information seeking can function as a valuable tool before a vaccination decision. As a next step, the newly-developed paradigm can be used to test interventions that motivate decision makers to search for information.
| Period | 21 Aug 2023 |
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| Event title | Subjective Probability, Utility and Decision Making Conference 2023 |
| Event type | Conference |
| Location | Wien, AustriaShow on map |