Reluctance to Vaccinate¶
Ritov, I., & Baron, J. (1990). Reluctance to Vaccinate: Omission Bias and Ambiguity. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 3(4), 263-277.
Cited by¶
3 citations across 3 artifacts.
Each citation links to the sentence it supports in the citing article.
Primes¶
- Omission Bias
- In clinical medicine and public health it is the most-studied case: vaccination hesitancy in which a parent prefers to risk a worse outcome from a disease (a harm of omission, not their doing) over a far smaller risk from a vaccine (a harm of commission, their doing), and the broader clinical pull toward not intervening where a bad outcome after treating would invite blame that the same bad outcome after watchful inaction would not.
This sourceDemonstrates omission bias in vaccination decisions — preferring a larger risk from inaction over a smaller risk from acting.
Supported in partVerified against the publisher's abstract
The abstract reports reluctance to vaccinate a hypothetical child even when the vaccine's death risk is much smaller than the disease's, and names this omission bias.
“Subjects are reluctant to vaccinate a (hypothetical) child when the vaccination itself can cause death, even when this is much less likely than death from the disease prevented. ... The reluctance is an example of omission bias”
- In clinical medicine and public health it is the most-studied case: vaccination hesitancy in which a parent prefers to risk a worse outcome from a disease (a harm of omission, not their doing) over a far smaller risk from a vaccine (a harm of commission, their doing), and the broader clinical pull toward not intervening where a bad outcome after treating would invite blame that the same bad outcome after watchful inaction would not.
- Regret
- Behavioral economics: Anticipated regret explains a family of otherwise puzzling behaviors — buying insurance against low-probability losses, holding losing stocks to avoid realizing the regret of a bad purchase, refusing to switch from defaults, and the asymmetry between regret of action and regret of inaction documented in the omission-bias literature.
This sourceDocuments omission bias—the asymmetry between regret of action and regret of inaction—exemplifying how anticipated regret distorts choice toward defaults and inaction.
Supported in partVerified against the publisher's abstract
This paper's abstract documents omission bias — reluctance to act (vaccinate) when the act itself can do harm, i.e. a commissions/omissions asymmetry — but says nothing about insurance, losing stocks or defaults.
“Subjects are reluctant to vaccinate a (hypothetical) child when the vaccination itself can cause death, even when this is much less likely than death from the disease prevented. […] The reluctance is an example of omission bias (Spranca, Minsk & Baron, in press), an overgeneralization of a distinction between commissions and omissions to a case in which it is irrelevant.”
- Behavioral economics: Anticipated regret explains a family of otherwise puzzling behaviors — buying insurance against low-probability losses, holding losing stocks to avoid realizing the regret of a bad purchase, refusing to switch from defaults, and the asymmetry between regret of action and regret of inaction documented in the omission-bias literature.
Mechanisms¶
- Residual Case Backlog
- The related bias is treating an omission — a harm from inaction — as less culpable than an equivalent harm from action, which is exactly how unserved-complement harms get systematically discounted.
This sourceDemonstrates omission bias: people can favor harmful inaction over an equivalent or less harmful act.
- The related bias is treating an omission — a harm from inaction — as less culpable than an equivalent harm from action, which is exactly how unserved-complement harms get systematically discounted.
Verification¶
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