This study examines the effects of including information about the scientific research behind vaccination in information provision about the MMR vaccine on societal acceptance and perceived legitimacy of the vaccine. We also test whether these effects are shaped by nature-oriented or science-oriented worldviews. Employing a pre-registered survey experiment conducted among members of a high-quality Dutch panel established using official population register data (n = 1,722), we found that receiving the informational stimulus did not positively affect support for the MMR vaccine. Moreover, providing information explaining the scientific research behind vaccination had a negative effect on support for the MMR-vaccine among those with a less science-oriented worldview.

Vaccine skepticism, information provision, nature-oriented worldview, science-oriented worldview, survey experiment
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© 2025 European Sociological Association. Published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) license
2025
European Sociological Association. Published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) license
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the use is non-commercial and the original work is properly cited. For a full description of the license, please visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/legalcode.

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euso.a.24-suppl- pdf file