Prejudice Against the Unvaxxed By Mrs Vera West
A study with a global sample space, done by researchers from Denmark’s Aarhus University, has revealed that people have discriminated, and shown prejudice, against individuals who have not received the Covid jabs. The sample was of 15,233 people across 21 countries, covering a number of cultures. It was found that the level of discrimination was as high as that exhibited to ex-criminals. On the other hand, the pure bloods, the unvaxxed did not display prejudice to the vaxxed. While the study did not go into details about why this is so, my own personal hypothesis is that maybe this could be more than just sociology, brainwashing and Skinnerian conditioning, and could also incorporate mRNA spike proteins in the brain. Stranger things have happened.
“The results of a global study from Denmark’s Aarhus University, reveal that across the globe people show prejudice and discriminatory attitudes towards individuals not vaccinated against COVID-19. The findings have been published in the journal Nature.
The study is part of the research project How Democracies Cope with COVID-19: A Data-Driven Approach (HOPE), https://hope-project.dk/#/about supported by the Carlsberg Foundation. It was made in cooperation with the Centre for the Experimental-Philosophical Study of Discrimination, supported by the Danish National Research Foundation.
The researchers set out to assess whether people express discriminatory attitudes in family and political settings across groups defined by COVID-19 vaccination status. Specifically, the sought to quantify discriminatory attitudes between vaccinated and unvaccinated citizens in 21 countries, covering a diverse set of cultures across the world.
Across three conjoint experimental studies (N=15,233), researchers demonstrated that vaccinated people express discriminatory attitudes towards the unvaccinated, often as high as the discriminatory attitudes often seen in common targets including immigrants, drug-addicts and ex-convicts. In contrast, there was little evidence that unvaccinated individuals display discriminatory attitudes towards vaccinated people.
Many vaccinated people do not want close relatives to marry an unvaccinated person. They are also inclined to think that the unvaccinated are incompetent as well as untrustworthy, and they generally feel antipathy against them.
Discriminatory attitudes are more strongly expressed in cultures with stronger cooperative norms. According to the researchers, the reason for this appears to be that the vaccinated perceive the unvaccinated as free riders. The findings suggest that contributors to the public good of epidemic control (i.e., the vaccinated) react with discriminatory attitudes against perceived free-riders (i.e., the unvaccinated).
Part of the overall study looking solely in the United States showed that not only do vaccinated people harbor prejudice against the unvaccinated, but they also think they should be denied fundamental rights. For instance, the unvaccinated should not be allowed to move into the neighborhood or express their political views on social media freely, without fear of censorship.
“It is likely that we will encounter similar support for the restriction of rights in other countries, seeing as the prejudice and antipathy can be found across continents and cultures,” said co-author Michael Bang Petersen, who is a professor of political science at Aarhus University.
With low vaccine uptake still a challenge to pandemic management, the researchers warn authorities against employing a rhetoric of moral condemnation in their attempt increase vaccination rates.
“Moral condemnation may strengthen the cleavages and further feelings of exclusion that have led many unvaccinated to refuse the vaccine in the first place. Our prior research has shown that transparent communication about the safety and effectiveness of vaccines is a more viable public-health strategy for increasing vaccine uptake in the long term,” said Michael Bang Petersen.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05607-y
Abstract
During the COVID-19 pandemic sizeable groups of unvaccinated minorities persist even in countries with high vaccine access1. Consequently, vaccination became a controversial subject of debate and even protest2. Here, we assess whether people express discriminatory attitudes in the form of negative affect, stereotypes and exclusionary attitudes in family and political settings across groups defined by COVID-19 vaccination status. We quantify discriminatory attitudes between vaccinated and unvaccinated citizens in 21 countries, covering a diverse set of cultures across the world. Across three conjoint experimental studies (N=15,233), we demonstrate that vaccinated people express discriminatory attitudes towards the unvaccinated, as high as the discriminatory attitudes suffered by common targets like immigrant and minority populations3,4.5. In contrast, there is an absence of evidence that unvaccinated individuals display discriminatory attitudes towards vaccinated people, except for the presence of negative affect in Germany and United States. We find evidence in support of discriminatory attitudes against the unvaccinated in all countries except Hungary and Romania and find that discriminatory attitudes are more strongly expressed in cultures with stronger cooperative norms. Prior research on the psychology of cooperation has shown that individuals react negatively against perceived free-riders6,7 including in the domain of vaccinations8,9. Consistent with this, the present findings suggest that contributors to the public good of epidemic control (i.e., the vaccinated) react with discriminatory attitudes against perceived free-riders (i.e., the unvaccinated). Elites and the vaccinated general public appealed to moral obligations to increase COVID-19 vaccine uptake10,11 but the present findings suggest that discriminatory attitudes including support for the removal of fundamental rights simultaneously emerged.”
Still relevant, here is one person’s letter to their Covid vax injured self:
https://www.trialsitenews.com/a/a-letter-to-my-covid-injured-self-72b539e4
https://www.anecdotalsmovie.com/
Comments