Seminar Series

2023 - 2024

Speaker: Moti Michaeli (U of Haifa) .

Title: “Are Anti Vaxxers Anti Social? How convictions shape prosocial behavior and vaccination decisions ”.

joint with A. Maltz and S. Gavriel (all U of Haifa).

Date: Thursday, March 14th at 12h30 (Paris Time).

Abstract: Remaining not vaccinated against Covid-19 by the end of the pandemic is a clear indication of having strong convictions. Such willingness to bear consequences to follow what one believes to be the right course of action is an important and understudied characteristic that is potentially responsible for a wide range of human behaviors, ranging from political activism through adopting unpopular habits to volunteering to help others. In a series of incentivized tasks performed by a large representative sample of the Israeli adult population (n=1,562), we document a negative correlation between vaccination against Covid-19 and the tendency to act pro-socially. This result seems to counter the intuition according to which vaccinating during the pandemic goes hand in hand with being pro-social. We explain this puzzling finding using the notion of convictions: The pro-social behavior of non-vaxxers reflects their willingness to bear the costs of what they perceive as the correct course of action, a willingness that tends to surpass the average level found in the general population. This rationale further implies that those with the weakest convictions are likely to vaccinate only partially and show the lowest levels of pro-sociality. Drawing on this line of reasoning we develop a formal model that is able to explain this empirically-found pattern of pro-sociality as a function of the number of vaccination-doses taken, a pattern that we dub as a ‘truncated U-shape’. The model also provides an insight into the marked differences in pro-social behavior patterns between participants who reported vaccinating due to pressure and those who did not.

Here is, a link to the speaker’s and the FEELab website:

https://sites.google.com/econ.haifa.ac.il/motimichaeli

https://sites.google.com/view/feelabtbs/

You are cordially invited to participate in the seminar, which will take place in Room 321, Lascrosses building. 

For more information, please contact: Pierre Mella-Barral p.mella-barral@tbs-education.fr