Some Underlying Psychological Mechanisms of the Anti Vaccination Movement
Abstract
The Anti Vaccination Movement grew out as a result of Andrew Wakefield’s claims regarding the link between autism and vaccines. Although his claims have been massively refuted, and it was later evident that he engaged in gross ethical misconduct, adherents to the Anti Vaccination Movement persist in their belief that vaccines cause autism. In this article, I explore three psychological mechanisms that partly explain why the Anti Vaccination Movement keeps its strength. First, conditioning: most parents of autistic children discover their child’s condition at around the same time they receive vaccines shots, and this facilitates the association of those two events in their minds. Second, modeling: the endorsement of the Anti Vaccination Movement by celebrities encourages people to believe in their mistaken theories. Third, agency detection: the Anti Vaccination Movement relies on conspiratorial thinking, and this way of thinking is based on the natural tendency of all humans to attribute agency to purposeless events.
Keywords
Full Text:
PDFReferences
American Psychiatric Association (2013). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: Dsm-5. Washington, D.C.
Bandura, A. (2013). The Bobo Doll Experiment. Createspace Independent Pub.
Barrett, J. (2012). Born Believers: The Science of Children's Religious Belief. NY: Simon and Schuster.
Britt, M. (2016) Psych Experiments: From Pavlov's Dogs to Rorschach's Inkblots, Psychology's Most Fascinating Studies to the Test. NY: F W Media Inc.
Cilliza, C. (2017). Donald Trump was a conspiracy-theory candidate. Now he’s on the edge of being a conspiracy-theory president. The Washington Post. March 4th, 2017. Retrieved from: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/03/04/donald-trump-was-a-conspiracy-theory-candidate-now-hes-on-the-verge-of-being-a-conspiracy-theory-president/?utm_term=.2b8b129ffae0.
Colvert, T., McEwen (2015). “Heritability of Autism Spectrum Disorder in a UK Population-Based Twin Sample”. JAMA Psychiatry. 72(5):415-423.
Deer, J. (2011). How the case against the MMR vaccine was fixed. British Medical Journal. 342:c5347.
DeWilde S, Carey IM, Richards N, Hilton SR, Cook D.G. (2001) Do children who become autistic consult more often after MMR vaccination? Br J Gen Pract ;51:226–7.
Douglas, S., Callan, D. (2015). Someone is Pulling the Strings: Hypersensitive Agency Detection and Belief in Conspiracy Theories. Thinking and Reasoning, 22 (1). pp. 57-77.
Eggerston, L. (2010). Lancet retracts 12-year-old article linking autism to MMR vaccines. CMAJ.JMAC. 182(4): E199–E200.
Fombonne E, Chakrabarti S (2001). No evidence for a new variant of measles-mumps-rubella–induced autism. Pediatrics.;108:e58.
Frazer, J.G (1998). The Golden Bough. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Frederick, L: Lim, C.H., Clavio, G. and Walsh, P. (2012) Why We Follow: An Examination of Parasocial Interaction and Fan Motivations for Following Athlete Archetypes on Twitter. Evan. International Journal of Sport Communication. 5, 481-502.
Gmelc, G. (1992). "Superstition and Ritual in American Baseball". Elysian Fields Quarterly. Vol. 11, No. 3: 25-36
Hofstadter, R. (2012). The Paranoid Style in American Politics NY: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.
Kalat, J. (2010). Introduction to Psychology. London: Cengage Learning.
Kaye, J.A., Del Mar, M.M, Jick. H. (2001) Mumps, measles and the rubella vaccine, and incidence of autism recorded by general practitioners. British Medical Journal, 322, 460-463.
Malinowski, B. (2015). Magic, Science and Religion. NY: Martino Fine Books.
Merlan, A. (2015). Here's a Fairly Comprehensive List of Anti-Vaccination Celebrities. Jezebel. Retrieved from: http://jezebel.com/heres-a-fairly-comprehensive-list-of-anti-vaccination-c-1714760128
Nazir, A. (2008) Dispositions: Gazing Into the Amazing, Colorful, Global Crystal of Human Life. Author House.
Offit, P. (2010). Autism's False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure. NY: Columbia University Press .
Ono, K. (1987) Superstitious behavior in humans. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior. 47(3): 261–271
Osterling, J, Dawson, G (1994). Early recognition of children with autism: a study of first birthday home videotapes. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders. 24(3):247-57.
Postman, N. (2005) Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. NY: Penguin.
Skinner, B.F (2013). Superstition in the Pigeon. NY: Createspace Independent Pub.
Tal-Or, N. (2017). Parasocial Relationships and Break Ups. The International Encyclopedia of Media Effects. NY: John Wiley & Sons.
Taylor B, Miller E, Lingam R, Andrews N, Simmons A, Stowe J (2002) Measles, mumps, and rubella vaccination and bowel problems or developmental regression in children with autism: population study. British Medical Journal. 324:393–6.
Van Slyke, J. (2016). The Cognitive Science of Religion. NY: Routledge.
Wakefield AJ, Murch SH, Anthony A, Linnell J, Casson DM, Malik M (1998). Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children. Lancet; 351:637–41.
Watson, J. (1958). Behaviorism. NY: Transaction Publishers.
Watson, A., Rayner, R. (2013). Conditioned Emotional Reactions: The Case of Little Albert. NY: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.
Wise, J. (2001) Finnish study confirms safety of MMR vaccine. British Medical Journal. 322(7279): 130.
Wright, J. (1983). The Skeptical Realism of David Hume. Manchester: Manchester University Press
Wright, Jessica (2017). The Real Reasons Autism Rates Are Up in the U.S. Retrieved from: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-real-reasons-autism-rates-are-up-in-the-u-s/
Refbacks
- There are currently no refbacks.
Copyright (c) 2017 Journal of Progressive Research in Social Sciences
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Copyright © 2014 Journal of Progressive Research in Social Sciences. All rights reserved.
ISSN: 2395-6283.
For any help/support contact us at editorial@scitecresearch.com, jprsseditor@scitecresearch.com.