Stephan Lewandowsky, PhD│CHIBE Research Seminar

Speaker(s)

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  Stephan Lewandowsky, PhD, MA — Chair in Cognitive Science; Professor of Cognitive Science, University of Bristol

Event Description

Registration is required to attend this virtual seminar. To register, please visit: https://upenn.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_jMJjT_otRqq7XBxiY14iCA.

“Empathetic approaches to vaccine communication with people who are hesitant”

Vaccine hesitancy has been identified as a significant risk to public health by the WHO. Although there are many factors underlying vaccine hesitancy, it is almost invariably fuelled by misinformation circulating on the internet. A long history of research shows that misinformation is difficult to refute, especially if people are motivated by their deeply held attitudes to maintain their (false) beliefs, as is often the case surrounding vaccination. I report on the development and empirical test of a new technique that permits health care professionals to communicate with vaccine hesitant patients. This technique, known as the Empathetic Refutational Interview (ERI), rests on 4 steps: (a) elicit patients’ concerns about vaccination, (b) affirm their values and beliefs to the extent possible, (c) refute the misinformed beliefs in a way that is tailored to a person’s underlying psychological motivations, and (d) provide factual information about vaccines. The ERI is supported by a body of basic experimentation and has been shown to be effective in field tests with health care professionals and the public.

Professor Stephan Lewandowsky is a cognitive scientist at the University of Bristol and the recipient of numerous awards and honours, including a Discovery Outstanding Researcher Award from the Australian Research Council, a Wolfson Research Merit Fellowship from the Royal Society, and a Humboldt Research Award from the Humboldt Foundation in Germany. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Science (UK) and a Fellow of the Association of Psychological Science. He was appointed a fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry for his commitment to science, rational inquiry and public education. He also holds a Guest Professorship at the University of Potsdam in Germany.

His research examines people’s memory, decision making, and knowledge structures, with a particular emphasis on how people update their memories if information they consider to be true turns out to be false. His research currently focuses on the persistence of misinformation and spread of “fake news” in society, including conspiracy theories. He is particularly interested in the variables that determine whether or not people accept scientific evidence, for example surrounding vaccinations or climate science.

He has published more than 240 scholarly articles, chapters, and books. His research regularly appears in journals such as Nature Human Behaviour, Nature Communications, and Psychological Review. (See www.cogsciwa.com for a complete list of scientific publications.)

His research is currently funded by the European Research Council, the EU’s Horizon 2020 programme, the UK research agency (UKRI, through Centre of Excellence REPHRAIN), the Volkswagen Foundation, the John Templeton Foundation (via Wake Forest University’s “Honesty Project”), Google’s Jigsaw, and by the Social Sciences Research Council (SSRC) Mercury Project.

Professor Lewandowsky also frequently appears in print and broadcast media and has contributed around 100 opinion pieces to the global media. 

Organizer(s)