Perceived Social Influence on Vaccination Decisions: A COVID-19 Case Study

TL;DR

The study investigates how perceived social influence from different social ties affects COVID-19 vaccination decisions in the U.S. using a cross-sectional Prolific survey (n≈1000), incorporating quantitative measures of perceived influence, agreement, and danger across five social groups and a qualitative open-ended reasoning item. Ordinal logistic regressions reveal that vaccinated individuals report higher perceived influence and agreement from strong ties (notably family), while perceived danger to others shows no robust group differences; most participants report little social influence overall. Open-ended responses consistently highlight fear as a primary motivator—fear of COVID-19 among the vaccinated and fear of the vaccine among the unvaccinated—suggesting that social influence plays a subsidiary role to risk-based considerations and personal fears. The findings extend prior work by differentiating the impact of strong versus weak ties on vaccination decisions and highlight the complexity of social-contextual dynamics in health-related decision making, while acknowledging limitations related to self-report and sampling representativeness.

Abstract

In this study, we examine the perceived influence of others, across both strong and weak social ties, on COVID-19 vaccination decisions in the United States. We add context to social influence by measuring related concepts, such as perceived agreement of others and perceived danger of COVID-19 to others. We find that vaccinated populations perceived more influence from their social circles than unvaccinated populations. This finding holds true across various social groups, including family, close friends, and neighbors. Vaccinated participants perceived that others agreed with their decision to get vaccinated more than unvaccinated participants perceived others to agree with their decision to not get vaccinated. Despite the clear differences in perceived social influence and agreement across the groups, the majority of participants across both vaccinated and unvaccinated populations perceived no social influence from all social group in their decisions. Aligning with this result, we find through open-ended responses that both vaccinated and unvaccinated participants frequently cited fear as a motivating factor in their decision, rather than social influence: vaccinated participants feared COVID-19, while unvaccinated participants feared the vaccine itself.

Figures (4)

• Figure 1: (a) Counties where at least one survey participant resides. Participants in our survey lived in 882 unique U.S. counties, with 471 counties represented in the vaccinated group and 461 counties represented in the unvaccinated group. (b) Correlation of key demographic variables used in study. Distributions of (c) political leaning, (d) rural-urban identity, and (e) education of vaccinated (blue) and unvaccinated (yellow) participants.
• Figure 2: Distributions of perceived influence across social groups of vaccinated (blue) and unvaccinated (yellow) participants. The means perceived influence across each social group, where 'None at all' is 1 and 'A great deal' is 5, where: (a) 2.57 for vaccinated, 1.74 for unvaccinated, (b) 2.11 for vaccinated, 1.47 for unvaccinated, (c), 1.47 for vaccinated, 1.17 for unvaccinated, (d) 1.15 for vaccinated, 1.12 for unvaccinated, (e) 1.40 for vaccinated, 1.12 for unvaccinated.
• Figure 3: Distributions of perceived agreement across social groups of vaccinated (blue) and unvaccinated (yellow) participants. The means perceived agreement across each social group, where 'Disagree' is 1 and 'Agree' is 3, where: (a) 2.78 for vaccinated, 2.19 for unvaccinated, (b) 2.80 for vaccinated, 2.19 for unvaccinated, (c), 2.48 for vaccinated, 1.98 for unvaccinated, (d) 2.21 for vaccinated, 1.95 for unvaccinated, (e) 2.34 for vaccinated, 1.88 for unvaccinated.
• Figure 4: Distributions of perceived danger across social groups of vaccinated (blue) and unvaccinated (yellow) participants. The means perceived danger across each social group, where 'Extremely unlikely' is 1 and 'Extremely likely' is 5, where: (a) 2.70 for vaccinated, 2.28 for unvaccinated, (b) 2.28 for vaccinated, 1.97 for unvaccinated, (c), 2.55 for vaccinated, 2.17 for unvaccinated, (d) 2.82 for vaccinated, 2.36 for unvaccinated, (e) 2.90 for vaccinated, 2.42 for unvaccinated.