Partisanship predicts Covid-19 Vaccine Brand Preference

KRICK, CANDELARIA BELÉN; FUMAGALLI, ELENA; DOLMATZIAN, MARINA BELÉN; DEL NEGRO, JULIETA EDITH; NAVAJAS, JOAQUIN

Congreso; XIX Reunión Nacional y VIII Encuentro Internacional de la Asociación Argentina de Ciencias del Comportamiento (AACC); 2023

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the importance of reducing both real and perceivedbarriers to a vaccination campaign. Health systems worldwide faced delays in vaccinationefforts due to people's preference for specific vaccine brands which caused appointmentcancellations or delays. Previous literature showed that consumers choose products that arecongruent with their self-concept, which includes their political affiliation. Our objective is to test whether partisanship influences perceptions and preferences for COVID-19 vaccine brands and also, vaccination campaigns. We collected survey data from Argentina (N = 432 ; Mage = 44.6). To address brand perceptions, a two-way Analysis of Variance mixed-model (ANOVA) where the vaccine’s brand origin (western vs. eastern) and partisanship (FT vs. JxC) were the independentvariables, and perception (effectiveness or safety) was the dependent variable. As a proxyfor preference, a chi-square test was performed to determine whether the proportion ofparticipants who report they would switch brands if they could was equal between the twoparties. Third, we ran several ANOVAs where political affiliation was the independentvariable and campaign support questions (e.g. ease to get an appointment) were thedependent variables. We found that supporters of the ruling party, which had strong ties with Eastern countries such as Russia, perceived Eastern vaccine brands (e.g., Sputnik V) to be more effective and safer than Western ones (e.g., Pfizer) whereas the contrary was true for supporters of the opposition. Also, supporters of the opposing party were more likely to wish to hypotheticallyswitch vaccines, to delay their appointment in case of not receiving their preferred brand,and to disapprove of their local vaccination campaign. Our results demonstrate that political party affiliation biases perceptions of both vaccine brands’ quality and vaccination campaign effectiveness. Policy makers should take this into account when planning vaccination campaigns.