How College Students React to COVID Vaccine PSAs: An Experimental Investigation

• Published date: 01 May 2024
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X231220650
• Author: Kim Fridkin,Trudy Horsting,Anastasia L. Brown,Alexandra M. Williams
• Date: 01 May 2024

Article

American Politics Research

2024, Vol. 52(3) 203–224

© The Author(s) 2023

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DOI: 10.1177/1532673X231220650

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How College Students React to COVID

Vaccine PSAs: An Experimental Investigation

Kim Fridkin

1

, Trudy Horsting

1

, Anastasia L. Brown

1

, and

Alexandra M. Williams

1

Abstract

We explore how political and psychological factors condition the effectiveness of PSAs promoting COVID-19 vaccines.

Targeting college students, we utilize a pretest-posttest experiment to examine how different PSAs (emotional, informational,

and humorous) inf‌luence students’emotional reactions and assessments of the PSAs. Further, weassess whether the PSAs are

able to inf‌luence learning and persuasion. We f‌ind certain PSAs are more effective at changing people’s attitudes aboutthe

COVID-19 vaccine and the impact of these messages depends on people’s political and psychological predispositions. The

informational PSA produces learning, regardless of students’receptivity to pro-vaccine messa ging. However, the humorous and

emotional PSAs encourages learning only for those who are already receptiveto the vaccine. These f‌indings have implications

for future public health campaigns aimed at college students, suggesting PSA campaigns developed to battle new health crises

should be launched quickly before people develop strong attitudes about the emerging crisis.

Keywords

COVID-19, vaccines, emotions, psychological predispositions, college students

On May 19, 2022, the United States off‌icially passed a grim

milestone, more than one million known deaths due to

COVID-19 (Hassan, 2022). While COVID-19 vaccines

had been widely available since early 2021, the vaccin ation

rate in the United States had been largely f‌lat since late

January 2022, with a little less than two-thirds of the

population fully vaccinated against COVID-19 (Kaiser

Family Foundation, 2022).

1

While vaccination rates vary

along several dimensions, including race and ethnicity,

education level, and region, young people between 18 and

25 are less likely to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19

than older cohorts (Jaffe et al., 2022). Once vaccines be-

came widely available, young adults were more likely than

any other group to say they would “wait and see”before

getting vaccinated against COVID-19 (Kaiser Family

Foundation, 2022). Furthermore, young adults between

18 and 29 have the highest cumulative COVID-19 infec-

tion rates, compared to older cohorts (e.g., Adams et al.,

2021), making them more likely to spread the illness to

others who may be at high risk for severe disease.

In this paper, we explore how public service announce-

ments about the COVID-19 vaccine change college students’

attitudes and understanding of the vaccine. We rely on a

survey experiment to look at how public service an-

nouncements (PSAs) about the COVID-19 vaccine inf‌luence

emotional reactions to the PSAs and how these emotional

responses inf‌luence learning and attitudes about the vaccine.

Further, we show political and psychological predispositions

linked to attitudes about COVID-19 alter emotional reactions

to the PSAs, learning from the PSAs, and people’s perceived

effectiveness of the messages. The results of our study will

help us improve our understanding of how health commu-

nications can address vaccine hesitancy and foster conf‌idence

in the vaccine among college students. This examination is

critical because by reducing vaccine hesitancy of young

people, we may decrease infection rates and mortality more

broadly.

PSAs are often used in health campaigns to promote

desirable behavior (e.g., getting a f‌lu vaccine) or discourage

unhealthy behavior (e.g., texting while driving, vaping).

PSAs air on television, radio, and on social media platforms

and provide messages designed to present information to the

public and persuade people to alter their behavior to reduce

risks to themselves as well as others (Tait et al., 2022). PSAs

1

School of Politics and Global Studies, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ,

USA

Corresponding Author:

Trudy Horsting, School of Politics and Global Studies, Arizona State

University, 976 S Forest Mall, Room 6775, Tempe, AZ 85287-1004, USA.

Email: thorstin@asu.edu

may be particularly persuasive among college students since

their attitudes may be less crystallized than attitudes among

older individuals (Sears, 1986). Further, these students may

be especially receptive to messages about the COVID-19

vaccine because the decision to receive the vaccine or not

may represent one of the f‌irst independent healthcare deci-

sions made by these students.

A handful of scholars have begun to explore the content

and impact of PSAs advocating COVID-19 safety precau-

tions. For example, Tait et al. (2022) conducted a content

analysis of COVID-19 PSA airing between March 12 and

December 16, 2020 in the United States and found the most

common health guidance offered in the PSAs was to stay

home (81%), practice social distancing (62%) and wash

hands (54%) with 36% of the PSA airings encouraging mask

wearing. Greene et al. (2022) conducted a survey as well as a

randomized survey experiment to examine whether exposure

to PSAs advocating wearing masks inf‌luences behaviors,

f‌inding exposure to these PSAs “increased support for face

masks and induced greater compliance with public health

advice.”(Greene et al., 2022, p. 7).

In exploring the effectiveness of PSAs on changing be-

havior and attitudes, scholars have identif‌ied several im-

portant factors, such as the use of narratives (e.g., Green &

Brock, 2000), appeals to prosocial behavior versus self-

interest (e.g., Ceylan & Hayran, 2021;Kelly & Hornik,

2016;Motta & Stecula, 2021), and the effectiveness of

loss (or threat) versus gain (or positive) messages (e.g., Borah

et al., 2021;Quick & Bates, 2010). In this study, we explore

the effectiveness of three types of appeals: emotional appeals,

informational appeals, and humorous appeals.

The bulk of work on emotional appeals in PSAs focus

on fear (e.g., Witte & Allen, 2000); these appeals are often

effective (e.g., Shen, 2010, but also see Nabi et al., 2007)

because fear signals danger and leads people to want to

seek protection from danger (e.g., Roseman, 1984). In-

formational (or rational) appeals are more likely to utilize

rational arguments to present information in a matter-of-

fact way with simple language to enhance message com-

prehension (e.g., Wilson & Wolf, 2009). Informational

appeals are often inf‌luential (e.g., Lindauer et al., 2020),

however, it’s not clear whether rational appeals are more

effective than emotional appeals (e.g., Kareklas &

Muehling, 2014). Humorous appeals, unlike emotional

and information appeals, “purposely use positive affect,

through the use of humor, to connect positive feelings with

the issue being addressed in the message”(Turner, 2011,

p. 66). Humorous appeals are sometimes (Skurka et al.,

2018), but not always, successful (e.g., McGraw et al.,

2015).

In this paper, we explore college students’attitudes to-

wards the COVID-19 vaccine. Focusing on college students

is important because of their high risk of contracting and

spreading COVID-19. Students on college campuses are in

close contact with others in dorms, lecture halls, and crowded

university buildings. Furthermore, college students often

socialize with others at bars and other venues where social

distancing is diff‌icult. Since college students are simulta-

neously reluctant to receive the COVID-19 vaccine and are

likely to contract and spread COVID-19, it is essential to

decrease vaccine hesitancy and increase vaccination rates

among these individuals.

Understanding Receptiveness to Messages

about the COVID-19 Vaccine among

College Students

Several studies relying on representative samples of adults in

the United States have shown attitudes toward COVID-19

health protocols vary across political and psychological di-

mensions. Young adults may also vary in their views about

COVID-19 and the COVID-19 vaccine, in particular. If this is

the case, then certain students may be more (or less) receptive

to messages about the COVID-19 vaccine.

2

Therefore, we

begin our inquiry by identifying psychological and political

dimensions linked to attitudes about the COVID-19 vaccine

among college students.

To begin, we know views about the COVID-19 pandemic

have been polarized across political and ideological lines,

with Republicans viewing COVID-19 as less of threat, as less

severe, and viewing themselves as less vulnerable to the virus

(e.g., Fridman et al., 2021), compared to Democrats. Con-

servatives and Republicans are more vaccine hesitant than

liberals and Democrats (Pennycook et al., 2022) and these

partisan differences grew during the f‌irst two years of the

pandemic (Kaiser Family Foundation, 2022).

3

Similarly,

news coverage has differed dramatically across partisan and

non-partisan news sources, with right-leaning news outlets

presenting more misinformation about the crisis and more

anti-vaccine content (e.g., Evanega et al., 2020;Motta et al.,

2020;Motta & Stecula, 2021).

Further, several researchers have studied the relationship

between psychological factors and attitudes toward COVID-

19 (Brouard, et al., 2020;Han et al., 2021;Volk et al., 2021;

Zajenkowski et al., 2020). For example, studies indicate

people high in social dominance orientation (SDO) are less

concerned about the coronavirus pandemic and are not

worried about getting sick and dying from COVID-19,

compared with people low in SDO (e.g., Clarke et al., 2021;

Fischer et al., 2020).

4

In addition, level of conspiracy thinking

is linked to views about COVID-19; people with higher levels

of conspiracy thinking are more hesitant to receive the

COVID-19 vaccine or engage in preventative behaviors

(Kari´

c&MeCedovi´

c, 2021;Nazli et al., 2022;Salerno et al.,

2021,Hartman et al., 2021,van Mulukom et al., 2022).

Finally, intolerance of uncertainty (IU), a dispositional

characteristic leading to negative beliefs about uncertainty, is

associated with higher levels of anxiety, higher risk aversion,

and a greater likelihood complying with health precautions

204 American Politics Research 52(3)