Publication: Social norms, political polarization, and vaccination attitudes: evidence from a survey experiment in Turkey
Program
KU-Authors
KU Authors
Co-Authors
Koyuncu, Murat
Schneider, Sebastian O.
Sutter, Matthias
Publication Date
Language
Type
Embargo Status
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Alternative Title
Abstract
This paper examines vaccination as a descriptive social norm in the context of the Covid19 pandemic. Using a large-scale survey experiment in Turkey, we first elicit respondents' vaccination attitudes and show that political affiliation is a strong predictor of it. We then use economic games to measure the extent of outgroup discrimination induced by respondents' attitudes towards vaccination. We find that while both pro- and anti-vaxxers discriminate against each other substantially, the pro-vaxxers discriminate more than the anti-vaxxers do. This polarization intensifies when pro- and anti-vaxxers perceive a political difference between them. Using randomized informational treatments, we show that a reminder or priming of external threats, appealing to a broadly shared social identity, might mitigate such outgroup discrimination.
Source
Publisher
ELSEVIER
Subject
Economics
Citation
Has Part
Source
European Economic Review
Book Series Title
Edition
DOI
10.1016/j.euroecorev.2024.104818