“Following Your Gut” or “Questioning the Scientific Evidence”: Understanding Vaccine Skepticism among More-Educated Dutch Parents

This study aims to understand vaccine skepticism among a population where it is remarkably prevalent—more-educated Dutch parents—through 31 in-depth interviews. Whereas all respondents ascribe a central role to the individual in obtaining knowledge (i.e., individualist epistemology), this is expressed in two repertoires. A neoromantic one focuses on deriving truth through intuition and following a “natural” path and informs a risk typology: embracing (refusing) “natural” (“unnatural”) risks such as “childhood diseases” (“pharmaceutical substances”). A critical-reflexive repertoire centers on s... Mehr ...

Verfasser: Ten Kate, Josje
Koster, Willem De
Van der Waal, Jeroen
Dokumenttyp: Artikel
Erscheinungsdatum: 2021
Reihe/Periodikum: Journal of Health and Social Behavior ; volume 62, issue 1, page 85-99 ; ISSN 0022-1465 2150-6000
Verlag/Hrsg.: SAGE Publications
Schlagwörter: Public Health / Environmental and Occupational Health / Social Psychology
Sprache: Englisch
Permalink: https://search.fid-benelux.de/Record/base-26669655
Datenquelle: BASE; Originalkatalog
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Link(s) : http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0022146520986118

This study aims to understand vaccine skepticism among a population where it is remarkably prevalent—more-educated Dutch parents—through 31 in-depth interviews. Whereas all respondents ascribe a central role to the individual in obtaining knowledge (i.e., individualist epistemology), this is expressed in two repertoires. A neoromantic one focuses on deriving truth through intuition and following a “natural” path and informs a risk typology: embracing (refusing) “natural” (“unnatural”) risks such as “childhood diseases” (“pharmaceutical substances”). A critical-reflexive repertoire centers on scientific methods but is skeptical about the scientific consensus and informs a risk calculation: opting for the choice perceived to bear the smallest risk. Thus, the same vaccine can be rejected because of its perceived harm to natural processes (neoromantic repertoire) or because its scientific basis is deemed insufficient (critical-reflexive repertoire). Moreover, these opposing repertoires are likely to inspire different responses to the same health-related information.