Misinformation Beliefs, Intellectual Humility, and Vaccine Attitudes and Status

The current research examined the role of openness to information—and misinformation—in vaccine attitudes and COVID-19 vaccine status. Openness to information was examined in 2 ways: misinformation susceptibility, or the extent to which people endorse alternative health beliefs, pseudoscience, and conspiracy theories, and intellectual humility, or the extent to which people are open to information differing from their current beliefs. Results showed that antivaccination attitudes were related to a lower likelihood of being vaccinated against COVID-19, Χ2(11, N = 107) = 43.78, p < .001, exp(B)=. 72, 95% CI [0.53, 0.99]. Interestingly, endorsing pseudoscientific beliefs predicted a higher likelihood of being vaccinated against COVID-19, Χ2(11, N = 107) = 43.78, p < .001, exp(B)=1 .30, 95% CI [1.05, 1.61]. Endorsing antivaccination attitudes was related to greater belief in alternative health beliefs, r(183) = .29, p < .001, pseudoscience, r(119) = .55, p < .001, and conspiracy theories (generic: r(182) = .73, p < .001; vaccine: r(180) = .88, p < .001). Participants with high intellectual humility were more likely to endorse generic and vaccine conspiracy beliefs, r(184) = .23, p < .001 and r(182) = .19, p = .01, respectively, but no more or less likely to endorse other misinformation beliefs. Intellectual humility was not related to COVID-19 vaccine status. More research is needed to clarify the relationships among misinformation susceptibility, intellectual humility, and vaccine attitudes and status.