AEA RCT Registry

Fields Changed

Registration

Field	Before	After
Trial Title	Prosocial motivation for COVID-19 vaccination	Vaccination as personal public-good provision
Trial Status	on_going	completed
Abstract	We test whether prosocial behavior in economic games predicts self-reported COVID-19 vaccination.	Vaccination against infectious diseases has both private and public benefits. We study whether social preferences---concerns for the well-being of other people---are associated with one's decision regarding vaccination. We measure these social preferences for 549 online subjects with a public-good game and an altruism game. To the extent that one gets vaccinated out of concern for the health of others, contribution in the public-good game is analogous to an individual's decision to obtain vaccination, while our altruism game provides a different measure of altruism, equity, and efficiency concerns. We proxy vaccine demand with how quickly a representative individual voluntarily took the initial vaccination for COVID-19 (after the vaccine was widely available). We collect COVID-19 vaccination history separately from the games to avoid experimenter-demand effects. We find a strong result: Contribution in the public-good game is associated with greater demand to voluntarily receive a first dose, and thus also to vaccinate earlier. Compared to a subject who contributes nothing, one who contributes the maximum ($4) is 58% more likely to obtain a first dose voluntarily in the four-month period that we study (April through August 2021). In short, people who are more pro-social are more likely to take a voluntary COVID-19 vaccination. Behavior in our altruism game does not predict vaccination. We recommend further research on the use of pro-social preferences to help motivate individuals to vaccinate for other transmissible diseases, such as the flu and HPV.
Trial End Date	September 18, 2021	October 13, 2021
JEL Code(s)		I12, D91, C90
Last Published	September 12, 2021 11:18 PM	August 11, 2024 05:30 PM
Study Withdrawn		No
Intervention Completion Date		October 13, 2021
Data Collection Complete		Yes
Final Sample Size: Total Number of Observations		549 subjects completed all sessions.
Public Data URL		https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/K6WE2
Is there a restricted access data set available on request?		No
Program Files		Yes
Program Files URL		https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/K6WE2
Data Collection Completion Date		October 13, 2021
Is data available for public use?		Yes
Intervention End Date	September 17, 2021	October 13, 2021
Additional Keyword(s)	COVID-19, vaccine, vaccination, prosocial preferences, altruism, free riding, public health, SARS-CoV-2	pro-social behavior, vaccination, behavioral public health, COVID-19, public-good game, experimental economics
Secondary Identifying Number(s)		NIH 2P30AG012839
Pi as first author	No	Yes

Papers

Field	Before	After
Paper Abstract		Vaccination against infectious diseases has both private and public benefits. We study whether social preferences---concerns for the well-being of other people---are associated with one's decision regarding vaccination. We measure these social preferences for 549 online subjects with a public-good game and an altruism game. To the extent that one gets vaccinated out of concern for the health of others, contribution in the public-good game is analogous to an individual's decision to obtain vaccination, while our altruism game provides a different measure of altruism, equity, and efficiency concerns. We proxy vaccine demand with how quickly a representative individual voluntarily took the initial vaccination for COVID-19 (after the vaccine was widely available). We collect COVID-19 vaccination history separately from the games to avoid experimenter-demand effects. We find a strong result: Contribution in the public-good game is associated with greater demand to voluntarily receive a first dose, and thus also to vaccinate earlier. Compared to a subject who contributes nothing, one who contributes the maximum ($4) is 58% more likely to obtain a first dose voluntarily in the four-month period that we study (April through August 2021). In short, people who are more pro-social are more likely to take a voluntary COVID-19 vaccination. Behavior in our altruism game does not predict vaccination. We recommend further research on the use of pro-social preferences to help motivate individuals to vaccinate for other transmissible diseases, such as the flu and HPV.
Paper Citation		Reddinger, J. L., Gary Charness, and David Levine. 2024. "Vaccination as personal public-good provision." Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 224 (August) 481--499.
Paper URL		https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2024.06.015

Fields Changed

Registration

Papers

Sponsors