Publication date: Sep 01, 2025
Trust in news media is important to examine in relation to COVID-19 vaccination and personality has also been explored in regard to vaccination, where agreeableness, conscientiousness, and emotional stability have been shown to be connected to positive attitudes towards vaccination. This study examines salient predictor variables among young people who may be less inclined to vaccinate and seek booster shots for COVID-19. This study employed an online Qualtrics survey method at a large US university to ascertain the relationship between independent variables news trust, personality traits, political beliefs, and social media use, and intentions to vaccinate among college students, N = 456. Agreeableness and emotional stability predict the intention to vaccinate against the COVID-19. Agreeableness is the strongest personality trait to predict individuals’ intention to take the COVID-19 vaccine when adding trust in news media, trust in science, and political party affiliation as predictors among personality traits. Trust in news media and intention to vaccinate were mediated by trust in science. This study has important implications for how to target and communicate with certain types of individuals based on trust in news, trust in science, and personality types, particularly, agreeableness. Trust in science is an important mediator variable that is influential on intention to vaccinate.
Open Access PDF
| Concepts | Keywords |
|---|---|
| Party | big five |
| Political | covid‐19 |
| Science | news trust |
| Vaccination | trust in science |
| vaccination | |
| vaccination intentions |
Semantics
| Type | Source | Name |
|---|---|---|
| disease | MESH | COVID-19 |
| disease | MESH | uncertainty |
| drug | DRUGBANK | Coenzyme M |
| drug | DRUGBANK | Trestolone |
| disease | IDO | process |
| disease | MESH | emergency |
| drug | DRUGBANK | Ademetionine |
| drug | DRUGBANK | Methionine |
| disease | MESH | Kuru |