Publication date: Jun 28, 2023
The objective of this research was to explore how attitudes to science and scientists may be related to anti-vax positions and whether the psychological trait known as Need for Closure may influence the relationship between any or all of these attitudes. A questionnaire was administered to a sample of 1128 young people aged 18-25 living in Italy during the COVID-19 health crisis. Based on the results of exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, which allowed the extraction of a three-factor solution (scepticism about science, unrealistic expectations about science and anti-vax postures), we tested our hypotheses by means of a structural equation model. We found that anti-vax positions are strongly correlated with sceptical views of science, while unrealistic expectations about science affect attitudes to vaccination only indirectly. Either way, Need for Closure emerged as a key variable in our model, as it significantly moderates the effect of both factors on anti-vax positions.
| Concepts | Keywords |
|---|---|
| Italy | COVID-19 |
| Science | moderated mediation |
| Unrealistic | need for closure |
| Vaccination | trust in science |
| vaccination hesitancy |
Semantics
| Type | Source | Name |
|---|---|---|
| disease | VO | vaccine |
| disease | MESH | COVID-19 pandemic |
| disease | MESH | postures |
| disease | VO | vaccination |