Sophia Horn; Michael Mäs

Karlsruhe Institute for Technology (KIT)

During the COVID-19 pandemic disease-spreading models were crucial tools for governments and health agencies. However, these models faced criticism for not adequately capturing the dynamics of protective behavior like vaccination, self-isolating, and mask-wearing. Among the few models that did include behavioral components, theoretical approaches varied significantly. For example, some models assumed that individuals conform to the descriptive norms of their social environment, suggesting that people are more likely to engage in protective behavior when they observe high levels of compliance around them. In contrast, game-theoretic models posited that individuals tend to free-ride on the protective behavior of others, opting not to protect themselves when they perceive others are doing so. To empirically test these competing assumptions about social influence, we used a factorial survey design. Participants were exposed to scenario descriptions that varied in the number of bystanders wearing masks and were asked to evaluate how appropriate they found it to not wear a mask in each scenario. We developed a vignette design to measure each participant’s reaction to others’ behavior on an individual level allowing us to capture the heterogeneity in social influence. Our findings enable us to estimate influence-response-functions, contributing to the understanding of social norms by examining how the opinion about one’s own protective behavior is influenced by the action of others. What is more, these empirically derived influence-response-functions can directly be fed into formal models of disease dynamics. This highlights how sociology can make a substantial contribution to epidemiology by improving the accuracy of disease-spreading models.

Miriam Trübner¹; Alexander Patzina²; Martin Bujard³

¹ Johannes Gutenberg Universität Mainz; ² Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg; ³ Bundesinstitut für Bevölkerungsforschung & Universität Heidelberg

The worldwide rise in vaccination hesitancy among parents represents a significant setback for public health. Against this background, we examine the attitudes and decisions of parents in Germany regarding Covid-19 vaccination of their children. Based on wave 2 (2022/23) of the German Family Demography Panel Study FReDA (heterosexual couples with children aged 5-11 (N=1177), and children aged 12-17 (N=617)), we apply logistic regression analyses to examine, first, the association between parents’ attitudes towards Covid-19 vaccination on the probability of their children to be vaccinated and, second, the heterogeneity of families with differing views on gender role and diverse childcare arrangements. Results indicate that respondents have predominantly positive attitudes towards the Covid-19 vaccination, but that mothers are slightly more concerned about side effects than fathers. Looking at the intra-couple level, it shows that most, but not all parents agree in their attitudes about the Covid-19 vaccination. The tendency that mothers’ decisions are more influential than those of fathers, can be attributed to their generally higher involvement in childcare. However, the results also show that an anti-vaccination stance in most cases impedes vaccinations regardless of whether the mother or the father adopts this attitude. These findings on the dyadic parental decision-making regarding children’s vaccination provide important implications for policymakers and health professionals for closing emerging vaccination gaps in children, also regarding other diseases.

Shannon Taflinger¹; Sebastian Sattler²

¹ University of Cologne; ² Bielefeld University GESIS

While research shows that contextual characteristics affect health outcomes, their effect on preventive behaviors is understudied. Therefore, this study examines the relationship between regional infection risk and adherence to COVID-19 preventive behavior, examining frequency of information about the local situation (from news and social contacts) and perceived susceptibility as mediators. We combined official data on county-level seven-day COVID-19 incidence rates, as an indicator of contextual risk, with a representative survey in Germany (N=9,023). Due to previous mixed evidence, we operationalized perceived susceptibility conditional on taking no preventive measures. Serial mediation using structural equation modeling shows that individuals in regions with higher incidence rates engaged in more preventive behavior. The relationship between incidence rates and adherence is serially mediated by information frequency and perceived susceptibility. This study elucidates the complex pathways by which the proximal environment influences health-related information, cognitions, and behavior, further demonstrating the importance of perceived susceptibility in this process.

Hannah Soiné

University of Mannheim

This paper examines the dynamics of political trust in Germany during the COVID-19 pandemic. Political trust is crucial for maintaining societal cohesion during crises, as it influences how citizens react to their government’s actions in uncertain times. This research extends the understanding of political trust dynamics during crises by accounting for political trust’s relational and situational nature. I analyze the rally-around-the-flag effect of the pandemic on political trust that previous research has found, breaking it down for specific political parties and two domains of trust – trust in parties to handle the pandemic and climate change. I use data from a survey experiment implemented in the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Survey (N=3,164), in which questions about how parties handled COVID-19 and how they handled climate change were asked in varying order. Respondents who were first asked about COVID-19, thereby making it more salient than in the group who got questions about climate change first, reported higher trust in the governing parties CDU/CSU and SPD to handle the pandemic. There is no difference in the evaluation of opposition parties’ handling of the pandemic depending on the salience of the pandemic. The SPD and one opposition party are also evaluated as more competent to handle climate change if COVID-19 is made more salient. This implies some limited “spillover” of the rally-around-the-flag effect to domains beyond the immediate crisis. Making climate change more salient by asking about it first did not affect participants’ trust in parties to handle climate change.