Ideology,moral reframing,and persuasion in the context of COVID-19 vaccines

A possible strategy for circumventing vaccine hesitancy and increasing support for vaccines is moral reframing. Moral Foundations Theory suggests messages framed using individuating foundations should be more persuasive to liberals, while messages framed using binding foundations should be more persuasive to conservatives. In an experiment, we investigated the role of political ideology and moral reframing in persuading college students to support mandating COVID-19 vaccination on university campuses. We tested harm-framed and loyalty-framed interventions to persuade liberals and conservatives, respectively. Results indicated that overall conservatives were less persuaded than liberals. Liberals were more persuaded by a harm-framed than loyalty-framed message when measuring ideology categorically (but not continuously). There were no differences in persuasion among conservatives. With further research, moral reframing could be effective in increasing support for vaccines and mandatory vaccinations.     

AN INVESTIGATION OF VELOCITY SYNTHESIS

C ohen , R. L. An investigation of velocity synthesis. Scand. J. Psychol ., 1962, 3 , 97–111.—A short series of experiments has shown that it is possible to divide up the distribution of scores obtained from a group of subjects performing on the velocity synthesis apparatus mainly on the basis of (1) instructions and (2) eye behaviour. It was further found that the difference in scores dependent on differences in eye behaviour could be traced to the effect of the Aubert-Fleischl Paradox. An alternative to the gestalt model was suggested, viz. a signal/interference model.