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Study Finds Surprising Results in Vaccine Debate on Zuckerberg's Facebook Post
Mark posted a picture of himself with his daughter, preparing for her to receive her vaccines. This resulted in over 3.4 Million comments, igniting a wildfire of discussion, debate, anger and downright rage.
A study was done based on the linguistics of these comments and published in a journal called Vaccine (obviously a pro-vaccine journal).
From the study:
Mark posted a picture of himself with his daughter, preparing for her to receive her vaccines. This resulted in over 3.4 Million comments, igniting a wildfire of discussion, debate, anger and downright rage.
A study was done based on the linguistics of these comments and published in a journal called Vaccine (obviously a pro-vaccine journal).
According to study co-author Leslie R. Martin, PhD., a researcher specializing in personality and psychosocial predictors of health and mortality risk at La Sierra University in Riverside, CA, it was a “very surprising” outcome.
“What we really expected going in was that the people who are anti-vaccination or who are hesitant would be more inflammatory, much more negative, very emotional, and not demonstrating logical thought processes, and that those on the pro side would be very logical and persuasive in a thoughtful and complex way,” Martin said.
From the study:
Conclusion
Although the anti-vaccination stance is not scientifically-based, comments showed evidence of greater analytical thinking, and more references to health and the body. In contrast, pro-vaccination comments demonstrated greater comparative anxiety, with a particular focus on family and social processes. These results may be indicative of the relative salience of these issues and emotions in differing understandings of the benefits and risks of vaccination. Text-based analysis is a potentially useful and ecologically valid tool for assessing perceptions of health issues, and may provide unique information about particular concerns or arguments expressed on social media that could inform future interventions.