While there is some progress being made in fighting vaccine hesitancy, many are still reluctant to get what they see as an experimental and untested medicine.
"For the most part what we’re facing here are two problems," explained Dr. Steven Pearlman, educator and author of the book "America’s Critical Thinking Crisis: The Failure and Promise of Education."
On the one hand, there are people who are not well informed about the vaccine but are confident in their assessment of it, a variation on the Dunning-Kruger effect.
"People who have the least information or the least knowledge or expertise in a particular field are often the ones who are the most confident and certain in their decisions," he said. "It’s a fancy way of saying that a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing."
In the case of vaccines, people may have latched onto one story or anecdote of side effects and give it more weight.
"The other thing is that we’re facing a situation where people have some natural fears here - and there’s reason to have some concerns about this - but we have a situation where the vaccine is safer than the virus, but the virus might feel safer because it’s the known."
Over the last year, people have developed habits to keep them safe from infection, which may have become familiar and even comforting.
"Control is the thing that enables our brain to feel like it can do the most higher order thinking and to relax and bring us the most confidence. Well, if nothing else, people have learned how to control for the virus in a lot of ways," said Dr. Pearlman. "The vaccine, though safe if we look at it intellectually, nevertheless can trigger some fear responses in our brain and those fear responses can make us feel out of control."
Information is an important tool in overcoming this fear of the vaccine.
But Dr. Pearlman told KCBS Radio's "Ask An Expert" on Wednesday there is a crucial step that must come first.
"Simply confronting people with information doesn’t necessarily allay their fears: if it did, they wouldn’t have them right now to begin with. What they need to be able to do is sympathize and empathize with these people’s fears and concerns, give them outlet, give them voice. And then once those things have voice, they’ll be able to start returning back to the more reasoned part of their thinking processes."
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