Persuasion and the COVID-19 vaccine

[sue_frantz]

With COVID-19 vaccines being rolled out, discussion is now happening about how to convince the general public to get the vaccine once it’s available. As of mid-November, 2020, a Gallup poll found that “58% of Americans say they would get a COVID-19 vaccine,” a notable increase from 34% in July (Reinhart, 2020). What can we do to help convince the hold-outs to get the vaccine?

Just published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (Volpp et al., 2020), three medical professionals—in 2-page opinion piece—suggest five “behaviorally informed strategies” that may increase willingness to be vaccinated. This assignment asks students to connect those strategies to Robert Cialdini’s six principles of persuasion.

Assignment

Read “Behaviorally informed strategies for a national COVID-19 vaccine promotion program.” Identify the five suggested strategies and briefly summarize each.

Next, read “Principles of persuasion.” For each principle of persuasion, identify—if any—the suggested strategy that best matches it. For example, for the persuasion principle of “authority,” which of the five suggested vaccine promotion strategies seems to be appealing to this strategy? Explain. If there is not a suggested strategy for a particular principle of persuasion, propose a strategy.

You may want to extend this assignment into a discussion.

Discussion initial post

As you learned through the persuasion/vaccine assignment, not all of the principles of persuasion are addressed in the suggested vaccine promotion strategies. Choose one of the persuasion principles not addressed, and propose a vaccine promotion strategy based on that principle.

Discussion replies

Reply to two initial posts. In each reply, include at least two of the following types of comments.

1. A compliment, e.g., "I like how... because...," I like that... because..."
2. A comment, e.g., "I agree that... because...," "I disagree that... because..."
3. A connection, e.g., "I have also read that...," "I have also thought that...," "That reminds me of..."
4. A question, e.g., "I wonder why...," "I wonder how..." 

References

Reinhart, R. J. (2020, November 17). More Americans now willing to get COVID-19 vaccine. https://news.gallup.com/poll/325208/americans-willing-covid-vaccine.aspx

Volpp, K. G., Loewenstein, G., & Buttenheim, A. M. (2020). Behaviorally informed strategies for a national COVID-19 vaccine promotion program. Journal of the American Medical Association. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2020.24036