Scrutable

Past research has shown that people are influenced by the perceived beliefs and behaviours of other people – what are known as “social norms”. But these perceptions are often inaccurate, which can lead to people shaping their behaviour to fit a misperceived norm.

... Parents in the UK overestimated how much other British parents endorsed anti-vaccine conspiracy theories. And, as before, the more people believed that others believed these conspiracy theories, the more strongly they tended to believe themselves.

Knowing this, we then attempted to lower parents’ belief in anti-vaccine conspiracy theories by correcting their overestimation of what other parents think.

We found that correcting misconceptions reduced parents’ beliefs in anti-vaccine conspiracy theories. It also increased perceptions that other parents would vaccinate their children, which as a knock-on effect increased parents’ own intentions to have a child vaccinated.