How can you make an anti-vaxxer want to get vaccinated?
Some countries have been very successful at getting their citizens to get vaccinated — others have not — why?
Reasons given range from partisan political infighting to ineffective communication of scientific facts — but all comes down to mistrust of the information presented resulting in decision to do nothing rather than something.
The resultant self-justification to NOT get vaccinated is hard to understand by those who have used logic, reason and science to get themselves vaccinated — but the anti-vaxx position is perfectly logical.
If you attempt to convince your anti-vaxx friend, colleague, relation to take the shot using the logic and reason that you as a TOTALLY RATIONAL PERSON used to make your decision, you will reinforce their belief to NEVER get vaccinated.
This seems crazy and produces an apartheid like segregation of convinced vaxxers and anti-vaxxers.
Don’t believe me?
Let’s looks at an example of obviously (probably to everyone — hopefully) crazy conspiracy theory beliefs that were based on the world ending and the reactions of adherents when this didn’t happen. Using the example of the last presidential election being “stolen” would be ineffective as there are too many adherents to the belief that it was indeed stolen — even though it was not!
When Prophecy Fails: A Social and Psychological Study of a Modern Group That Predicted the Destruction of the World is a classic work of social psychology by Leon Festinger, Henry Riecken, and Stanley Schachter, published in 1956, detailing a study of a small UFO religion in Chicago called the Seekers that believed in an imminent apocalypse. The authors took a particular interest in the members’ coping mechanisms after the event did not occur, focusing on the cognitive dissonance between the members’ beliefs and actual events, and the psychological consequences of these disconfirmed expectations.
Festinger, Riecken and Schachter were already studying the effects of prophecy disconfirmation on groups of believers, when they read a story in a local newspaper headlined “Prophecy from Planet. Clarion Call to City: Flee That Flood. It’ll Swamp us on Dec. 21” The prophecy came from Dorothy Martin (1900–1992), a Chicago housewife who practised automatic writing, and it outlined a catastrophe predicted for a specific date in their near future. Seeing an opportunity to test their theories with a contemporary case study, the research team infiltrated the group of Martin’s followers in order to collect data before, during and after the time the prophecy would be disconfirmed.
Martin claimed to be receiving messages from superior beings from a planet she referred to as Clarion. These messages included a prophecy that Lake City and large portions of the United States, Canada, Central America and Europe would be destroyed by a flood before dawn on December 21st 1954. Through the restrained recruitment activities of Charles Laughead (a college doctor in Michigan) and other acquaintances, Martin was supported in her mediumship by a small group of believers. Some of the believers took significant actions that indicated a high degree of commitment to the prophecy. Some left or lost their jobs, neglected or ended their studies, ended relationships and friendships with non-believers, gave away money and / or disposed of possessions to prepare for their departure on a flying saucer, which they believed would rescue them and others in advance of the flood.
As anticipated by the research team, the prophesied date passed with no sign of the predicted flood, causing a dissonance between the group’s commitment to the prophesy and the unfolding reality. Different members of the group reacted in different ways. Many of those with the highest levels of belief, commitment and social support became more committed to their beliefs, began to court publicity in a way they had not before, and developed various rationalisations for the absence of the flood. Some others, with less prior conviction and commitment, and / or less access to ongoing group support, were less able to sustain or increase their previous levels of belief and involvement, and several left the group. The findings of the research team were broadly in line with their initial hypothesis regarding how believers might react to a prophecy disconfirmation if certain conditions were or were not in place.
That’s seems crazy — those who had committed most to the belief by giving away their worldly possessions — became the belief’s most fervent and active believers when the world did not end?
This is how cognitive dissonance and self-justification work — these believers, like any of us, believed they were reasonable, rational, good human beings. When facts proved them wrong in their beliefs they pivoted to reinforce their internal belief — since no one ever believes themselves to be crazy, the response of passionate proselytising for the failed prophecy was to protect themselves.
So whether is Nicki Minaj’s Trinidadian cousin’s newly impotent friend after vaccination to George Bush’s belief that there were WMD in Iraq, to 9/11 conspiracy theorists who believe the destruction of the Twin Towers was a government plot — believers are not convinced of the errors of their beliefs by facts.
I am in the business of corporate and country transformation and facts NEVER drive change — only resistance.
So how do I overcome resistance to change, or mistaken beliefs?
I communicate by listening first and talking later — every one wants to communicate and not be told what to do — they have, they believe, good reasons for their beliefs that you believe to be wrong. Telling them otherwise, reinforces their current belief and communication ceases.
My wife has an expression that encapsulates this process “ You will catch more flies with honey than with vinegar” . I still find it hard to do this as we all have a belief that talking at rather than listening to will somehow work better — it does not.
This process is not a passive “roll over and die” strategy it is very assertive. Listening is active, when someone states the reason they chose not to be vaccinated , ask them why. One reason will often be a friend of an friend had a bad reaction. In this case sympathise and ask to meet their friend of a friend. Other times they will note that they, or a family member had a bad reaction, believe them and ask for more details and probe if it could have been any other underlying cause that caused the problem.
Only when in the throes of a productive conversation can you bring up statistics and science, such as why do they think that 99% of people dying of Covid are unvaccinated ?— and seek their explanation as to why.
