Vaccine hesitancy in the COVID-19 pandemic remained a problem long after mRNA vaccines became available. This may be due in part to misunderstandings about the vaccines, arising from complexities of the science involved. Two experiments, conducted on unvaccinated Americans at two periods postvaccine rollout in 2021, demonstrated that providing explanations, expressed in everyday language, and correcting known misunderstandings, reduced vaccine hesitancy compared to a no-information control group. Four explanations addressing misunderstandings about mRNA vaccine safety and effectiveness were tested in Experiment 1 (n = 3,787). Some included expository text while others included refutational text, explicitly stating and refuting the misunderstanding. Vaccine effectiveness statistics were expressed either as text or an icon array. Although all four explanations reduced vaccine hesitancy, the refutational format of those addressing vaccine safety (explaining the mRNA mechanism and mild side effects) was the most effective. These two explanations were retested individually and jointly in Experiment 2 (n = 1,476) later in the summer of 2021. Again, vaccine hesitancy was significantly reduced by all explanations despite differences in political ideology, trust, and prior attitudes. These results suggest that nontechnical explanations of critical issues in vaccine science can reduce vaccine hesitancy, especially when accompanied by refutational text. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

中文翻译：

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通过解释疫苗科学来减少疫苗犹豫。

在 mRNA 疫苗问世很久之后，COVID-19 大流行中的疫苗犹豫仍然是一个问题。这可能部分是由于所涉及科学的复杂性而导致对疫苗的误解。在 2021 年疫苗推出后的两个时期对未接种疫苗的美国人进行的两项实验表明，与无信息对照组相比，以日常语言表达的解释并纠正已知的误解可以减少疫苗犹豫。实验 1 测试了针对 mRNA 疫苗安全性和有效性误解的四种解释（n = 3,787）。有的包含说明性文字，有的包含反驳性文字，明确陈述和反驳误解。疫苗有效性统计数据以文本或图标数组表示。尽管所有四种解释都减少了对疫苗的犹豫，但解决疫苗安全性的反驳形式（解释 mRNA 机制和轻微副作用）是最有效的。2021 年夏天晚些时候，这两种解释在实验 2（n = 1,476）中单独和联合重新测试。同样，尽管政治意识形态、信任和先前态度存在差异，但所有解释都显着减少了对疫苗的犹豫。这些结果表明，对疫苗科学中关键问题的非技术解释可以减少疫苗犹豫，特别是在附有反驳文字的情况下。（PsycInfo 数据库记录 (c) 2023 APA，保留所有权利）。