Could vanity save us from COVID-19?

Perhaps because of its roots as one of the “Seven Deadly Sins”, for most people, being vain is considered a bad character trait. However, being truthful, don’t we all care about our appearance? Whether we do it to show off, get others to like us, “keep up with the Joneses” or avoid looking bad, let’s be honest, we are all guilty of it. But rather than looking down on such behaviour, what if we could use the power of vanity to do good? More specifically, what if we could use vanity to get more people to vaccinate against COVID-19?

The number of people who are likely to refuse the COVID-19 vaccine is worryingly high. Based a global survey of more than 18,000 adults from 15 countries, as many as 27% of adults might refuse it, which could make it extremely difficult to achieve herd immunity.¹ Overcoming this hesitancy could therefore be one of the most significant and urgent challenges for behavioural science.

What’s driving vaccine refusal?

It is likely that a complex set of reasons are fuelling COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy, which are likely to vary depending on the individual. For many, the decision to vaccinate will be influenced by “omission bias”, where the risks from doing nothing and potentially contracting COVID-19 are irrationally considered lower than risks from taking action and vaccinating. This is common behaviour. For example, parents who were offered to vaccinate their children against swine flu rated identical symptoms more negatively when they resulted from swine flu rather than the vaccine and were more willing to accept risks from the disease than the vaccine.²

Our perception of COVID-19 vaccine risk is also likely to be inflated by the “availability heuristic”, where we judge how likely something is to happen based on how easily it comes to mind. Unfortunately, there is a deluge of fake news and conspiracy theories spread about the COVID-19 vaccine online which prays on our emotions and is therefore interesting and memorable. Recent research shows that one in three people in the UK have seen or heard anti-COVID-19 vaccine messages and between 40–50% of people say that they don’t know whether the vaccine might cause infertility or autism.³ Furthermore, if people are concerned about vaccine risk, they are likely to search for and overweight information that is consistent with their fears through “confirmation bias”. For example, through “liking” and “following” users and content on social media, people develop a unique feed of information which reinforces their views, commonly known as “echo-chambers”. People’s perceptions of COVID-19 vaccine risk are therefore increasingly inflated through self-fulfilling information channels.

How can vanity help?

In order to get enough people to vaccinate against COVID-19, mass-cooperation will be required, where enough people are willing to do something costly to benefit others. Interestingly, there is a growing amount of research which suggests that people are more likely to do this when their actions are visible to other people. Doing something for others is generally seen as a good thing and therefore when others can see this, it is a way of signalling that we are a good person.

Studies which have tested the effects of image motivation on “public good” activities have had promising results. For example, studies have shown that people are willing to spend more time volunteering when they are doing so publicly.⁴ A study on US firefighter volunteers also showed that the decision to volunteer is linked with image concerns, as indicated by the number of volunteers who had chosen to buy a “vanity” licence plate for their cars which showed that they had volunteered a significant amount of time for the community.⁵ An experiment on volunteer editors for the online encyclopedia Wikipedia also found that external visible recognition (a graphical symbol posted on their personal page and an announcement on Wikipedia’s award page), resulted in a significant increase in newcomer retention rates and new volunteers who remained active on the site.⁶

Another clear application is charitable donations; people seem to donate more to charity when the donations are made public. For example, in one experiment, participants were asked to make donations by performing clicks on their keyboard. Some of the participants were required to stand up at the end of the experiment and tell the rest of the group how often they clicked. These individuals donated far more than the people who made private contributions, suggesting that image concerns made people more generous.⁷

Researchers in this field have also revealed another behavioural quirk — when people are given the choice of donating anonymously or publicly, most people will choose to do so publicly, but the option makes people donate more.⁸ This might explain why many charities offer donors the choice of remaining anonymous.

How could this increase COVID-19 vaccination?

There are many ways in which people can be given the option to publicise that they have received the COVID-19 vaccine. One option would be for social media companies such as Facebook to privately prompt users to mark whether they received the vaccine. A user would then be able to publish that they have been vaccinated on their personal page, in a similar way to how people are prompted to mark themselves safe in a disaster situation. Another solution could be to send vaccinated individuals a graphical symbol which they could include in their email signatures. Other non-digital options are car bumper and window stickers, pens or badges which could be issued to people after they have been vaccinated.

Natalie Hall is a former lawyer and behavioural science enthusiast, studying for a MSc in Behavioural Science at the London School of Economics.

Notes

¹ Ipsos MRI. (2020). COVID-19 vaccination intent is decreasing globally. Retrieved from https://www.ipsos.com/en/global-attitudes-covid-19-vaccine-october-2020

² Brown, K., Kroll, S., Hudson, M., Ramsay, M., Green, J., Vincent, C., Fraser, G., Sevdalis, N. (2010). Omission bias and vaccine rejection by parents of healthy children: Implications for the influenza A/H1N1 vaccination programme. Vaccine, 28(25), 4181–4185 doi: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2010.04.012.

³ Ipsos MORI. (2020). Coronavirus: vaccine misinformation and the role of social media. Retrieved from https://www.kcl.ac.uk/policy-institute/assets/coronavirus-vaccine- misinformation.pdf

⁴ Linardi, S., & McConnell, M. (2008). Volunteering and image concerns. (Unpublished) California Institute of Technology, California, 1–23.

⁵ Carpenter, J., & Knowles Myers, C. (2010). Why volunteer? Evidence on the role of altruism, image and incentives. Journal of Public Economics, 94, 911–920 doi: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2010.07.007.

⁶ Gallus, J. (2017). Fostering public good contributions with symbolic awards: a large-scale natural field experiment at Wikepedia. Management Science, 63(12), 3999–4015 doi: 10.1287/mnsc.2016.2540.

⁷ Ariely, D., Bracha, A., & Meier, S. (2009). Doing good or doing well? image motivation and monetary incentives in behaving prosocially. American Economic Review, 99(1), 544–555 doi: 10.1257/aer.99.1.544

⁸ Petrie, A. (2004). Public goods experiments without confidentiality: a glimpse into fund-raising. Journal of Public Economics, 88, 1605–1623 doi:10.1016/S0047–2727(03)00040–9