Vaccines have prevented and nearly eliminated several deadly diseases, yet they face skepticism from the public. One potential driver of vaccine skepticism is how people process event frequencies such as rare adverse reactions to vaccines. Misestimations may distort the perceived risks of vaccinating. The current study examined how vaccine skepticism is related to accuracy in event frequency processing. In Experiment 1, participants (n = 158) estimated the frequencies of several vital statistics (e.g., 'How many people die per year in the U.S. from emphysema?'). Higher levels of vaccine skepticism were associated with lower accuracy in frequency estimation and over-estimation of rare events. In Experiment 2 (n = 109), we again found that vaccine skepticism was negatively associated with vital statistic estimation accuracy but not for emotionally neutral or positive events. These results suggest that vaccine skepticism may arise from basic individual differences in processing events associated with mortality or negative affect.

中文翻译：

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疫苗怀疑论反映了死亡率相关事件频率估计中的基本认知差异。

疫苗已预防并几乎消除了几种致命疾病，但它们却受到公众的怀疑。疫苗怀疑论的一个潜在驱动因素是人们如何处理事件频率，例如罕见的疫苗不良反应。误接种可能会使人们意识到接种疫苗的危险。当前的研究检查了疫苗怀疑论与事件频率处理的准确性如何相关。在实验1中，参与者（n = 158）估计了一些重要统计数据的频率（例如，“美国每年有多少人死于肺气肿？”）。较高的疫苗怀疑态度与频率估计和罕见事件过高估计的准确性较低有关。在实验2（n = 109）中，我们再次发现，疫苗怀疑论与生命统计估算的准确性负相关，而与情绪中立或积极事件无关。这些结果表明，疫苗的怀疑可能源自与死亡率或负面影响有关的加工事件中的基本个体差异。