ABSTRACT
Objective: Fighting the COVID-19 pandemic requires many citizens to adopt disease-preventive practices. To enhance citizens' vaccination willingness, we explored the impact of national identity and different propaganda slogans on vaccination willingness. Methods: A total of 1098 questionnaires were collected in Study 1, and all participants completed the national identity questionnaire, knowledge of vaccine side effects, vaccine trust, and vaccination willingness. The initial vaccination willingness of the participants (N=804) was measured in Study 2. All participants were then randomly divided into three groups: self-interested, altruistic, and neutral; each group watched the corresponding propaganda video. Each video, which lasted about 11 seconds, consisted of five self-interested, altruistic, or neutral propaganda slogans. Vaccination willingness was then measured again. Results: 1. National identity can significantly predict vaccination willingness in the presence of side effects. 2. The effect of altruistic propaganda slogans on promoting individual vaccination willingness was significantly greater than that of the self-interested propaganda slogan, and the effect of altruistic propaganda slogans on individual vaccination willingness was significantly greater than that of neutral propaganda slogans. Conclusions: National identity, knowledge of vaccine side effects, and vaccine trust can jointly predict individual vaccination willingness in cases of strong national identity. Altruistic slogans have the greatest influence on the change in individuals’ vaccination willingness, and the influence of altruistic propaganda slogans can significantly improve individual vaccination willingness.