IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/obuest/v87y2025i3p562-585.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Who Gets Vaccinated? Cognitive and Non‐Cognitive Predictors of Individual Behaviour in Pandemics

Author

Listed:
  • Mark A. Andor
  • Thomas K. Bauer
  • Jana Eßer
  • Christoph M. Schmidt
  • Lukas Tomberg

Abstract

This study investigates different cognitive and non‐cognitive characteristics associated with individuals' willingness to get vaccinated against Covid‐19 and their actual vaccination status. Our empirical analysis is based on data obtained from three survey waves conducted in 2021 among about 2,000 individuals living in the German state of North Rhine‐Westphalia. We find that individuals with a high level of trait reactance – a personality characteristic that entails the personal tendency to perceive persuasion attempts as restricting one's freedom – display a significantly lower willingness to get vaccinated. They also tend to get inoculated later or never. Moreover, neuroticism, locus of control, and statistical numeracy appear to be associated with the willingness to get vaccinated, but these results are less pronounced and less robust. Our results indicate that vaccination campaigns and policies could be improved by specifically addressing those with a high level of trait reactance.

Suggested Citation

  • Mark A. Andor & Thomas K. Bauer & Jana Eßer & Christoph M. Schmidt & Lukas Tomberg, 2025. "Who Gets Vaccinated? Cognitive and Non‐Cognitive Predictors of Individual Behaviour in Pandemics," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 87(3), pages 562-585, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:obuest:v:87:y:2025:i:3:p:562-585
    DOI: 10.1111/obes.12644
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/obes.12644
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/obes.12644?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bargain, Olivier & Aminjonov, Ulugbek, 2020. "Trust and compliance to public health policies in times of COVID-19," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 192(C).
    2. Allcott, Hunt & Boxell, Levi & Conway, Jacob & Gentzkow, Matthew & Thaler, Michael & Yang, David, 2020. "Polarization and public health: Partisan differences in social distancing during the coronavirus pandemic," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 191(C).
    3. Laura Alfaro & Ester Faia & Nora Lamersdorf & Farzad Saidi, 2022. "Health Externalities and Policy: The Role of Social Preferences," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(9), pages 6751-6761, September.
    4. Edward T. Cokely & Mirta Galesic & Eric Schulz & Saima Ghazal & Rocio Garcia-Retamero, 2012. "Measuring risk literacy: The Berlin Numeracy Test," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 7(1), pages 25-47, January.
    5. Deborah A. Cobb‐Clark & Stefanie Schurer, 2013. "Two Economists' Musings on the Stability of Locus of Control," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 0, pages 358-400, August.
    6. Bazzi, Samuel & Fiszbein, Martin & Gebresilasse, Mesay, 2021. "“Rugged individualism” and collective (in)action during the COVID-19 pandemic," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 195(C).
    7. Isaac M. Lipkus & Greg Samsa & Barbara K. Rimer, 2001. "General Performance on a Numeracy Scale among Highly Educated Samples," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 21(1), pages 37-44, February.
    8. Randall S. Kroszner & Philip E. Strahan, 1999. "What Drives Deregulation? Economics and Politics of the Relaxation of Bank Branching Restrictions," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(4), pages 1437-1467.
    9. Chen, Chinchih & Frey, Carl Benedikt & Presidente, Giorgio, 2021. "Culture and contagion: Individualism and compliance with COVID-19 policy," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 190(C), pages 191-200.
    10. repec:cup:judgdm:v:7:y:2012:i:1:p:25-47 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Fang, Ximeng & Freyer, Timo & Ho, Chui-Yee & Chen, Zihua & Goette, Lorenz, 2022. "Prosociality predicts individual behavior and collective outcomes in the COVID-19 pandemic," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 308(C).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bird, Matthew D. & Arispe, Samuel & Muñoz, Paula & Freier, Luisa Feline, 2023. "Trust, social protection, and compliance: Moral hazard in Latin America during the COVID-19 pandemic," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 206(C), pages 279-295.
    2. Grimalda, Gianluca & Murtin, Fabrice & Pipke, David & Putterman, Louis & Sutter, Matthias, 2023. "The politicized pandemic: Ideological polarization and the behavioral response to COVID-19," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 156(C).
    3. Shuguang Jiang & Qian Wei & Luyao Zhang, 2022. "Individualism Versus Collectivism and the Early-Stage Transmission of COVID-19," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 164(2), pages 791-821, November.
    4. Anastasios Papanastasiou & Bradley J. Ruffle & Angela Zheng, 2022. "Compliance with social distancing: Theory and empirical evidence from Ontario during COVID‐19," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 55(S1), pages 705-734, February.
    5. Deiana, Claudio & Geraci, Andrea & Mazzarella, Gianluca & Sabatini, Fabio, 2022. "Can relief measures nudge compliance in a public health crisis? Evidence from a kinked fiscal policy rule," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 202(C), pages 407-428.
    6. Besley, Timothy & Dray, Sacha, 2023. "The political economy of lockdown: Does free media matter?," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    7. Li Huang & Oliver Zhen Li & Baiqiang Wang & Zilong Zhang, 2022. "Individualism and the fight against COVID-19," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 9(1), pages 1-20, December.
    8. Deopa, Neha & Fortunato, Piergiuseppe, 2021. "Coronagraben in Switzerland: Culture and social distancing in times of COVID-19," GLO Discussion Paper Series 857, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    9. Sergei Guriev & Elias Papaioannou, 2022. "The Political Economy of Populism," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 60(3), pages 753-832, September.
    10. Abel Brodeur & David Gray & Anik Islam & Suraiya Bhuiyan, 2021. "A literature review of the economics of COVID‐19," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(4), pages 1007-1044, September.
    11. Loiacono, Luisa & Puglisi, Riccardo & Rizzo, Leonzio & Secomandi, Riccardo, 2022. "Pandemic knowledge and regulation effectiveness: Evidence from COVID-19," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(3), pages 768-783.
    12. Monica Martinez-Bravo & Carlos Sanz, 2022. "The Management of the Pandemic and its Effects on Trust and Accountability," Working Papers wp2022_2207, CEMFI.
    13. Borau, Sylvie & Couprie, Hélène & Hopfensitz, Astrid, 2022. "The prosociality of married people: Evidence from a large multinational sample," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    14. Daryna Grechyna, 2024. "Elections and policies: Evidence from the Covid pandemic," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 77(3), pages 812-831, August.
    15. John M. Barrios & Efraim Benmelech & Yael V. Hochberg & Paola Sapienza & Luigi Zingales, 2020. "Civic Capital and Social Distancing during the Covid-19 Pandemic," NBER Working Papers 27320, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Barrios, John M. & Benmelech, Efraim & Hochberg, Yael V. & Sapienza, Paola & Zingales, Luigi, 2021. "Civic capital and social distancing during the Covid-19 pandemic☆," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 193(C).
    17. Marcella Alsan & Luca Braghieri & Sarah Eichmeyer & Minjeong Joyce Kim & Stefanie Stantcheva & David Y. Yang, 2023. "Civil Liberties in Times of Crisis," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 15(4), pages 389-421, October.
    18. Massimiliano Ferraresi & Christos Kotsogiannis & Leonzio Rizzo & Riccardo Secomandi, 2020. "The ‘Great Lockdown’ and its Determinants," Working papers 91, Società Italiana di Economia Pubblica.
    19. Ho Fai Chan & Martin Brumpton & Alison Macintyre & Jefferson Arapoc & David A. Savage & Ahmed Skali & David Stadelmann & Benno Torgler, 2020. "How confidence in health care systems affects mobility and compliance during the COVID-19 pandemic," CREMA Working Paper Series 2020-11, Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA).
    20. repec:hal:wpaper:hal-03974756 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Caitlin Brown & Martin Ravallion, 2023. "Inequality and Social Distancing during the Pandemic," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 21(3), pages 679-702, September.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making
    • H0 - Public Economics - - General
    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:obuest:v:87:y:2025:i:3:p:562-585. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sfeixuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.