IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/jconsa/v55y2021i4p1660-1681.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

When taking action means accepting responsibility: Omission bias predicts parents' reluctance to vaccinate due to greater anticipated culpability for negative side effects

Author

Listed:
  • Gary D. Sherman
  • Beth Vallen
  • Stacey R. Finkelstein
  • Paul M. Connell
  • Wendy Attaya Boland
  • Kristen Feemster

Abstract

Omission bias is the tendency to consider harm from inaction preferable to equivalent harm from action. In this work, we explored how individual differences in omission bias shape parental vaccine‐related decisions. Parents with a stronger omission bias showed greater negative emotional response to physician vaccine policy, placed lower trust in medical providers, and assigned a lower priority on vaccination. We observed this pattern of results even among parents who prioritize vaccination. Heightened anticipation of moral culpability for action (e.g., a child experiences vaccine side effects) and a diminished anticipation of moral culpability for possible harms of not acting (e.g., a child contracts a vaccine‐preventable disease) accounted for the effects we observed. These results suggest that parents' reluctance to vaccinate their children stems—in part—from the heightened perceived moral culpability that comes with taking action (versus not taking action).

Suggested Citation

  • Gary D. Sherman & Beth Vallen & Stacey R. Finkelstein & Paul M. Connell & Wendy Attaya Boland & Kristen Feemster, 2021. "When taking action means accepting responsibility: Omission bias predicts parents' reluctance to vaccinate due to greater anticipated culpability for negative side effects," Journal of Consumer Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(4), pages 1660-1681, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jconsa:v:55:y:2021:i:4:p:1660-1681
    DOI: 10.1111/joca.12401
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/joca.12401
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/joca.12401?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Marco daCosta DiBonaventura & Gretchen B. Chapman, 2008. "Do Decision Biases Predict Bad Decisions? Omission Bias, Naturalness Bias, and Influenza Vaccination," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 28(4), pages 532-539, July.
    2. Hornsey, Matthew J. & Lobera, Josep & Díaz-Catalán, Celia, 2020. "Vaccine hesitancy is strongly associated with distrust of conventional medicine, and only weakly associated with trust in alternative medicine," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 255(C).
    3. Ritov, Ilana & Baron, Jonathan, 1995. "Outcome Knowledge, Regret, and Omission Bias," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 64(2), pages 119-127, November.
    4. Suzanne C. Makarem & Michael F. Smith & Susan M. Mudambi & James M. Hunt, 2014. "Why People Do Not Always Follow the Doctor's Orders: The Role of Hope and Perceived Control," Journal of Consumer Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(3), pages 457-485, October.
    5. Richard G. Netemeyer & David G. Dobolyi & Ahmed Abbasi & Gari Clifford & Herman Taylor, 2020. "Health Literacy, Health Numeracy, and Trust in Doctor: Effects on Key Patient Health Outcomes," Journal of Consumer Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(1), pages 3-42, March.
    6. David A. Asch & Jonathan Baron & John C. Hershey & Howard Kunreuther & Jacqueline Meszaros & Ilana Ritov & Mark Spranca, 1994. "Omission Bias and Pertussis Vaccination," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 14(2), pages 118-123, April.
    7. Simona Botti & Kristina Orfali & Sheena S. Iyengar, 2009. "Tragic Choices: Autonomy and Emotional Responses to Medical Decisions," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 36(3), pages 337-352.
    8. Jamie Murphy & Frédérique Vallières & Richard P. Bentall & Mark Shevlin & Orla McBride & Todd K. Hartman & Ryan McKay & Kate Bennett & Liam Mason & Jilly Gibson-Miller & Liat Levita & Anton P. Martine, 2021. "Psychological characteristics associated with COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy and resistance in Ireland and the United Kingdom," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 12(1), pages 1-15, December.
    9. Squier, Roger W., 1990. "A model of empathic understanding and adherence to treatment regimens in practitioner-patient relationships," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 325-339, January.
    10. Baron, Jonathan & Ritov, Ilana, 2004. "Omission bias, individual differences, and normality," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 94(2), pages 74-85, July.
    11. Connolly, Terry & Reb, Jochen, 2003. "Omission bias in vaccination decisions: Where's the "omission"? Where's the "bias"?," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 91(2), pages 186-202, July.
    12. Myers, C. Daniel & Tingley, Dustin, 2016. "The Influence of Emotion on Trust," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 24(4), pages 492-500.
    13. Baron, Jonathan & Ritov, Ilana, 1994. "Reference Points and Omission Bias," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 59(3), pages 475-498, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Heather P. Lacey & Steven C. Lacey & Prerna Dayal & Caroline Forest & Dana Blasi, 2023. "Context Matters: Emotional Sensitivity to Probabilities and the Bias for Action in Cancer Treatment Decisions," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 43(4), pages 417-429, May.
    2. Ahmad Barirani & Randolph Sloof & Mirjam van Praag, 2017. "The Origins and Extent of Entrepreneurial Action-Orientedness: An Experimental Study," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 17-006/VII, Tinbergen Institute.
    3. Baron, Jonathan & Ritov, Ilana, 2004. "Omission bias, individual differences, and normality," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 94(2), pages 74-85, July.
    4. Jonathan Baron & Geoffry P. Goodwin, 2020. "Consequences, norms, and inaction: A critical analysis," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 15(3), pages 421-442, May.
    5. Bruce I. Carlin & David T. Robinson, 2009. "Fear and loathing in Las Vegas: Evidence from blackjack tables," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 4(5), pages 385-396, August.
    6. Kim Kaivanto & Winston Kwon, 2015. "The precautionary principle as a heuristic patch," Working Papers 94449112, Lancaster University Management School, Economics Department.
    7. Zeelenberg, Marcel & Pieters, Rik, 2004. "Consequences of regret aversion in real life: The case of the Dutch postcode lottery," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 93(2), pages 155-168, March.
    8. Polman, Evan, 2012. "Self–other decision making and loss aversion," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 119(2), pages 141-150.
    9. repec:cup:judgdm:v:15:y:2020:i:3:p:421-442 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. repec:cup:judgdm:v:4:y:2009:i:5:p:385-396 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Connolly, Terry & Reb, Jochen, 2003. "Omission bias in vaccination decisions: Where's the "omission"? Where's the "bias"?," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 91(2), pages 186-202, July.
    12. repec:cup:judgdm:v:9:y:2014:i:3:p:287-296 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Manja Gärtner & Anna Sandberg, 2017. "Is there an omission effect in prosocial behavior? A laboratory experiment on passive vs. active generosity," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(3), pages 1-21, March.
    14. Zeelenberg, M. & van Dijk, W.W. & Manstead, A.S.R., 1998. "Reconsidering the relation between regret and responsibility," Other publications TiSEM fa17bcac-aab0-4f37-8183-5, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    15. Di Guida, Sibilla & Marchiori, Davide & Erev, Ido, 2012. "Decisions among defaults and the effect of the option to do nothing," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 117(3), pages 790-793.
    16. Mark Heitmann & Andreas Herrmann & Christian Kaiser, 2007. "The effect of product variety on purchase probability," Review of Managerial Science, Springer, vol. 1(2), pages 111-131, August.
    17. Shaul Shalvi, 2012. "Dishonestly increasing the likelihood of winning," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 7(3), pages 292-303, May.
    18. Daphne Bussink-Voorend & Jeannine L. A. Hautvast & Lisa Vandeberg & Olga Visser & Marlies E. J. L. Hulscher, 2022. "A systematic literature review to clarify the concept of vaccine hesitancy," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 6(12), pages 1634-1648, December.
    19. Erik Hoelzl & Luise Hahn & Maria Pollai & Jan Masak, 2013. "The Effect of Feedback on Process and Outcome of Loan Negotiations: Consequences on Risk Aversion and the Willingness to Compromise," Group Decision and Negotiation, Springer, vol. 22(3), pages 541-559, May.
    20. repec:cup:judgdm:v:12:y:2017:i:3:p:280-296 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Netta Barak-Corren & Max Bazerman, 2017. "Is saving lives your task or God’s? Religiosity, belief in god, and moral judgment," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 12(3), pages 280-296, May.
    22. Shanley, James & Grossman, Philip J., 2007. "Paradise to parking lots: Creation versus maintenance of a public good," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 36(4), pages 523-536, August.
    23. Connolly, Terry & Ordonatez, Lisa D. & Coughlan, Richard, 1997. "Regret and Responsibility in the Evaluation of Decision Outcomes," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 70(1), pages 73-85, April.
    24. Ritov, Ilana & Baron, Jonathan, 1999. "Protected Values and Omission Bias," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 79(2), pages 79-94, August.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:jconsa:v:55:y:2021:i:4:p:1660-1681. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0022-0078 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.