A new global study out of MIT has found that news stories about vaccine hesitancy may be doing more harm than good.
But there's good news — and it comes in the form of selfies.
Researchers told a randomized group of people about others in their countries who said that they would take a vaccine, according to Sinan Aral, a professor at the Sloan School of Management at MIT. They then asked the people they were surveying if they would also get vaccinated.
The researchers found that when they told people about their peers accepting the vaccine, they were more likely to say that they would get vaccinated themselves.
Aral said that this means everyone, particularly those with large platforms, should use those spaces to voice support for the vaccine, including showing themselves getting the shot.
"You remember when we go to election polls, the voting booth, during elections, we get a little sticker that says 'I Voted'" Aral said. "You should think of this as a very similar type of strategy. The reason we get that sticker that says 'I Voted' is that social proof motivates people to join in. And so if we got a sticker or put out a video or put out a message that said I got vaccinated, it would have the same effect for the same reasons."
We also looked back on the last year of arts in the pandemic with GBH's Executive Arts Editor Jared Bowen.
Click on the audio player above to listen to the full episode.
Segments:
Sinan Aral - 2:01
Jared Bowen - 16:09
