Correction: Information battleground: Conflict perceptions motivate the belief in and sharing of misinformation about the adversary.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0282308.].

Explaining the gender gap in COVID-19 vaccination attitudes.

BACKGROUND: Women have been significantly more likely than men to express hesitancy toward COVID-19 vaccination and, to a lesser extent, to refuse vaccination altogether. This gender gap is puzzling because women have been more likely to perceive higher risks from COVID-19, to approve more restrictive measures to fight the pandemic and to be more compliant with such measures. METHODS: This article studies the gender gap in COVID-19 vaccination attitudes using two nationally representative surveys of public opinion fielded in February 2021 and May 2021 in 27 European countries. The data are analyzed using generalized additive models and multivariate logistic regression. RESULTS: The data analyses show that hypotheses about (i) pregnancy, fertility and breastfeeding concerns, (ii) higher trust in Internet and social networks as sources of medical information, (iii) lower trust in health authorities and (iv) lower perceived risks of getting infected with COVID-19 cannot account for the gender gap in vaccine hesitancy. One explanation that receives support from the data is that women are more likely to believe that COVID-19 vaccines are unsafe and ineffective and this leads them to perceive the net benefits of vaccination as lower than the associated risks. CONCLUSIONS: The gender gap in COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy results to a large extent from women perceiving higher risks than benefits of the vaccines. While accounting for this and other factors decreases the gap in vaccine hesitancy, it does not eliminate it completely, which suggests further research is needed.

What accounts for the variation in COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in Eastern, Southern and Western Europe?

In the wake of mass COVID-19 vaccination campaigns in 2021, significant differences in vaccine skepticism emerged across Europe, with Eastern European countries in particular facing very high levels of vaccine hesitancy and refusal. This study investigates the determinants of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy and refusal, with a focus on these differences across Eastern, Southern and Western Europe. The statistical analyses are based on individual-level survey data comprising quota-based representative samples from 27 European countries from May 2021. The study finds that demographic variables have complex associations with vaccine hesitancy and refusal. The relationships with age and education are non-linear. Trust in different sources of health-related information has significant associations as well, with people who trust the Internet, social networks and 'people around' in particular being much more likely to express vaccine skepticism. Beliefs in the safety and effectiveness of vaccines have large predictive power. Importantly, this study shows that the associations of demographic, belief-related and other individual-level factors with vaccine hesitancy and refusal are context-specific. Yet, explanations of the differences in vaccine hesitancy across Eastern, Southern and Eastern Europe need to focus on why levels of trust and vaccine-relevant beliefs differ across regions, because the effects of these variables appear to be similar. It is the much higher prevalence of factors such as distrust of national governments and medical processionals as sources of relevant medical information in Eastern Europe that are relevant for explaining the higher levels of vaccine skepticism observed in that region.

Information battleground: Conflict perceptions motivate the belief in and sharing of misinformation about the adversary.

Misinformation has emerged as a major societal concern. But why do citizens contribute to the dissemination of falsehoods online? This article investigates this question by focusing on the role of motivated reasoning and, in particular, perceptions of group-based conflict. It examines the effect of perceived conflict on the endorsement of false news in the context of a regional conflict between Russia and the West as experienced by Ukrainian citizens. In our survey experiment, a sample of Ukrainians (N = 1,615) was randomly assigned to read negative false news stories about Russia, the European Union or Tanzania-a country with no stakes in the conflict. The results show that higher perceived conflict between Ukraine and Russia makes Ukrainians less likely to endorse false news targeting the European Union, but more likely to endorse false news that paint a negative picture of Russia. This finding extends the support for motivated reasoning theory beyond Western contexts investigated so far. Importantly, the effects of conflict perceptions remain strong after controlling for group identity and political knowledge of participants. These results advance our understanding of why false information is disseminated and point to the importance of conflict de-escalation to prevent the diffusion of falsehoods.