As someone who studies consumer behavior for a living, I have spent the past year trying to understand what's really driving anti-vaxxers.
Research tells us that all decisions are emotional. So when people mention vaccines being made too fast and side effects that are shared on their Facebook feeds they are simply looking for a rational excuse for an emotional reaction.
There's no doubt that fear is the underlying factor for anti-vaxxers, although that fear includes everything from fear of needles - which appears to be the case for 30% of Americans, to fear of side effects that rarely happen.
But in his "Shame The Devil" Netflix show Michael Che mentioned another possibility. He offered up the opinion that the problem was that the vaccines were free; and hypothesized that if they were expensive then everyone would be lining up to get them.
It's an interesting idea.
We have discovered that as the saying goes - "There's no such thing as a free lunch." The item may be free, but not the shipping. The discount may be real, but so are imploring emails that arrive daily after you use it. So perhaps offering free vaccines sets off alarm bells among those already skeptical of the government.
On the other hand, research also tells us that we want what we can't have. It's the principle of scarcity and the reason why every email pitch you get these days features a call to action like - "Hurry! Only three left in stock."
We can't go back in time and change what has already happened. But it's worth thinking about as we move forward. Covid is far from over. And people will do what people do.
