No fear needed when trust runs deep: The interplay of risk perception and institutional integrity shapes vaccination
2026-07-15
Understanding the psychological determinants of vaccination behavior remains a key challenge for public health. In two studies conducted in Belgium during the COVID‐19 pandemic, we examined how risk perception and trust in the government interact to predict vaccination intention (Study 1) and vaccine uptake (Study 2). People's trust rests on their evaluation of the target's trustworthiness. In the present studies, we considered three components of trustworthiness: integrity, benevolence, and ability. We found that integrity was the component most strongly associated with vaccination. In addition, our results show that risk perception does not only add up to trust, and specifically its integrity component, but that these two factors interact in predicting vaccination. Specifically, either high risk perception or high integrity was sufficient to motivate vaccination, while individuals low on both were the most likely to be hesitant (consistent with a distrustful complacency hypothesis). Taken together, our findings provide a deeper understanding of the psychological mechanisms underlying vaccination. In addition, they highlight the value of adopting a multidimensional approach about trustworthiness as this points to the key role of integrity.