Science is coming closer: Manipulating psychological distance to COVID-19 vaccination

We have an effective weapon in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic: vaccines. Despite their abundance, many people remain unvaccinated. Growing antivaccine scepticism likely contributes vaccine rejection. Previous research linked individual differences (i.e., spirituality and science literacy) to vaccination scepticism. This project moved beyond idiosyncratic factors and proposed a theory-driven and malleable predictor that can contribute to explain scepticism towards new (i.e., hypothetical vaccines adapted to fight off the variants more effectively) and existing COVID-19 vaccines in Turkey: psychological distance. We presented participants (N = 250) with one out of two statements regarding COVID-19 vaccines. The content of each statement was manipulated by utilizing psychologically close or distant terms. We found just- moderate evidence in favour of the null hypotheses that state invariance across both conditions by using Bayesian independent samples t-test. Psychological distance by itself is not a mutable and causal factor to bypass the stable factors contributing to COVID-19 vaccination scepticism in Turkey. Future studies should still consider coupling psychological distance with other measures to test its real potential.