Persuasive messaging to increase COVID-19 vaccine uptake intentions
This astonishing psychosocial study is a terrible and revealing indictment of government, institutions, corporations and public health in the US and wider West. It is a report of a study conducted by researchers at Yale University that was initiated in July 2020, according to UN National Library of Medicine, ClinicalTrials.gov and published in Vaccine.
Robert Malone MD commented extensively on this study in his substack post, “Suppress, Silence, Skew and Censor Propaganda: skewed study results and psyops, what could go wrong?” and also drew attention to the glaring absence of any information regarding the source funding for what was a substantial study involving 4,361 participants in experiment 1 and 5,014 in experiment 2, and its 5 authors. Funding was concealed behind university entities, the Tobin Center for Economic Policy, the Yale Institute for Global Health, the Institution for Social and Policy Studies and the Center for the Study of American Politics at Yale University.
And that is just the beginning of the concerns.
While randomisation of study group assignation is stated, the demographics of the study population is very opaque, with some dense probability information tabulated and buried in the Supplementary Materials. The population demographic is important, as is between group matching, but this matching does not appear evident. The demographics and matching will have a profound effect on the findings.
The study divided the participants into eleven groups, one being a control group. The 10 investigation groups are listed below. I ascribe the psychological bribe or manipulation manifest in each (abridged) considered to help achieve what is termed as ‘prosocial’ compliant behaviour, or groupthink. There are also insidious recurrent generic messages within all specific participant groups nuanced to the group, such as, COVID-19 is limiting many people’s ability to … ; Vaccines are safe and widely used …; Vaccines save lives …; While you can’t do it alone, we can all keep our freedom by …;
Self-interest
Get vaccinated against COVID-19. It is the single best way to protect yourself from getting sick.
Community interest
Every person who gets vaccinated reduces the risk that people you care about get sick. We can all protect every-one by working together and getting vaccinated.
Community interest + guilt
+ Imagine the guilt you will feel if you choose not to get vaccinated and spread COVID-19 to someone you care about.
Community interest + embarrassment
+ Imagine the embarrassment and shame you will be if you choose not to get vaccinated and spread COVID-19 to someone you care about.
Community interest + anger
+ Imagine your anger if you choose not to get vaccinated and spread COVID-19 to someone you care about.
Not bravery
Soldiers, fire-fighters, EMTs, and doctors are putting their lives on the line to serve others during the COVID-19 outbreak. That's bravery. Refuse to get vaccinated isn’t brave, it is reckless. By not getting vaccinated, you risk the health of your family, friends, and community. To show strength get the vaccine so you don't get sick and take resources from other people who need them more, or risk spreading the disease to those who are at risk, some of whom can’t get a vaccine. Getting a vaccine may be inconvenient, but it works.
Trust in science
Getting vaccinated is the most effective means of protecting your community. Prominent scientists believe that once available, vaccines will be the most effective tool to stop the spread of COVID-19. The people who reject getting vaccinated are typically ignorant or confused about the science.
Personal freedom
Government policies to prevent the spread of COVID-19 limit our freedom of association and movement. Remember, each person who gets vaccinated reduces the chance that we lose our freedoms or government lockdowns return. We can all keep our freedom by getting vaccinated.
Economic freedom
People have lost their jobs, had their hours cut, and lost out on job opportunities because companies aren’t hiring. On top of this, government policies to prevent the spread of COVID-19 have stopped businesses from opening up. Remember, each person who gets vaccinated reduces the chance that we lose our freedoms or government lockdowns return.
Community economic benefit
Thousands of people have lost their jobs and are unable to pay their bills. Many others have been laid off by their employers and do not know when they will be called to return to work. We can all end this outbreak and strengthen the national economy by working together and getting vaccinated.
Results
Overall…
Not Bravery, Community Interest, and Community Interest + Embarrassment messages were the most compelling messages. The effects of the Trust in Science message and the Personal Freedom messages were not statistically significant when compared to the Baseline informational message. Economic freedom (less than baseline) and Community economic benefit were (no difference to baseline) appeared surprisingly, as unimportant prosocial messages.
One presumes that those who possess a sufficiency of resources will be least influenced by any prosocial messaging around personal economic or community economic freedoms. Those with little and even more to lose, one might suppose, would be strongly influenced by the threat of further impingement, limitation or compromise of their economic viability. The implication appears that the study population may be biased or confounded by individual and community economic variables, which is suggested by the absence of a meaningful response compared with baseline control group of messaging around Economic freedom and Community economic benefit.
Those who report being less likely to take risks appeared robustly more responsive to the Not Bravery message than those who were high in risk taking, who were more responsive to the Personal Freedom message. Certain groups appeared generically easier to persuade (Democrats rather than Republicans, an important divide that has emerged during the pandemic, and Women rather than Men).
The authors state:
Our findings are consistent with the idea that vaccination is often treated as a social contract in which people are expected to vaccinate and those who do not are sanctioned. In addition to messages emphasizing the prosocial element of vaccination, we observed that messages that invoked reputational concerns were successful at altering judgment of those who would free ride on the contributions of others. This work could also help explain why social norm effects appear to overwhelm the incentive to free ride when vaccination rates are higher. That is, messages that increased intentions to vaccinate also increased the moralization of non-vaccinators suggesting that they are fundamentally linked to one another. These messages will need to be adapted in specific cultural contexts with relevant partners, such as community leaders.
Lies Have Short Legs
Keep in mind that the abstract of this study opens with the following:
Widespread vaccination remains the best option for controlling the spread of COVID-19 and ending the pandemic. Despite the considerable disruption the virus has caused to people’s lives, many people are still hesitant to receive a vaccine. Without high rates of uptake, however, the pandemic is likely to be prolonged.
Now read this buried toward the end of the study publication:
The experiments presented here are not without limitations. First, we measured intentions to vaccinate at a time when a vaccine was not currently available and the effectiveness and side effects of potential vaccines were not known. This also meant that we could not observe actual vaccination behavior, which is ultimately the outcome of interest.
Post Script
The entire study was predicated on top down intent. The conclusion was manufactured and foregone, and designed to bolster a pending narrative. Participant psychological priming (bias and confounding) was well installed by the gamut of hyperbolic media imposed COVID fear, together with bureaucratic edicts and socially degrading, divisive policies surrounding lockdown, quarantine, masking, and the gamut of limitations on freedom. The study population was already drunk on expectation so the results were a given. They would reinforce the then narrative. The wanton economic destruction of small businesses was underway. There is no reference to informed consent regarding the novel experimental injections, which if fulsome, would have drastically inhibited uptake. This was a large well funded highly organised study manufactured to substantiate a priori, a murderous narrative designed to ensure a high level of novel synthetic gene injection uptake.
We now know unequivocally that not one of the premises upon which vaccine uptake was predicated was true.
At time of writing, in New Zealand around 20% of the population were not taken in by the ‘vaccination’ polemic, while numbers participating rapidly declined Pfizer experimental synthetic gene injections and their accompanying toxic inflammatory lipid nanoparticles as time and jabs went on.
New Zealand MOH vaccination data 25 SEP 2022
4,030,141 (vaccinated or booked) (Dose 1)
3,982,354 (Dose 2)
2,729,166 (Booster 1)
566,827 (Booster 2)
Paed dose 1: 267,357
Paed dose 2: 149,990
Total number of people who were jabbed: Dose 1 + Paed dose 1 = 4,180,131 Kiwis
(The assumption made is that subsequent doses beyond Dose 1 and Paed dose 1 are repetitions in the same individual).
NZ Population estimated to be 5,124,100 according to Stats NZ.
Therefore % jabbed: 81.58% … not as frequently peddled in the propaganda of State Media >90%.
So, a sizable number of Kiwis (nearly 20%) have managed to avoid it completely, while take-up of optional booster 2 suggests a larger portion of the population may have finally come to their senses realising that a lightweight affliction does not merit the uncertainty of a potentially fatal or life compromising series of unpredictable and useless experimental injections.
Reassuringly, a vast majority of the 20% will have exercised critical thought in declining not only the experimental injections that neither prevent transmission, infection or hospitalisation and make all three worse, but demonstrated robust immunity to being conned, coerced or compliant participants in a lethal, unwinnable and unpredictable game of Russian roulette.
Thanks for writing about this study. Go figure - humans and their propaganda. This whole covid me-too-freakout threw truth, discernment, common sense and yes "science and medicine" right out the window. But you can't make the truth go away just because it's incovenient. The truth is always there tapping on your shoulder.