Purpose in Life Increases Likelihood of COVID-19 Vaccination

The race to be vaccinated has stalled. In some states, like Tennessee and North Carolina, the demand for COVID-19 vaccines has slowed so dramatically that they have given back millions of doses to the federal government to be used elsewhere. Oklahoma has not asked for new doses of vaccines for more than a month.

Indeed, a glut of vaccines has emerged, with many states struggling to dole them out before they expire—a problem unthinkable just months ago. This sharp decline has materialized even though most states have less than half their populations fully vaccinated. Tennessee, for example, has less than 40 percent of its population fully vaccinated. More than 1,000 counties throughout the nation have vaccine coverage of less than 30 percent.

In response to the recent vaccine hesitation, and with the highly transmissible delta variant already the predominant COVID strain in the United States, government agencies are exploring all conceivable means to encourage more citizens to get their shots. Just last week, President Biden made a controversial push for increased vaccinations, stating that health care workers might need to go "door-to-door" to get more citizens vaccinated. The question remains, however, why aren't more people getting vaccinated?

Significant prior research has examined the psychology behind vaccine hesitation, particularly involving new vaccines under development. Much of this work has focused on the historical rationales for Black adults, in particular, to be less accepting of new vaccines (see, for example, Quinn et al., 2021). But some psychosocial individual differences, such as conscientiousness and emotional stability, have also been shown to influence vaccine willingness (Lin and Wang, 2020). Recently, another important psychosocial variable—the sense of purpose in life—has been identified as a predictor of one's willingness to get a COVID-19 vaccine.

In a study published last week in Social Science & Medicine, researchers amassed a large, nationwide sample of adults in the United States (N = 2009). Participants completed questionnaires assessing their level of purpose in life, demographic and political factors, depressive symptoms, and their willingness and motivations towards getting a vaccine. Multiple regression analyses found that those with a greater sense of purpose were more willing to get vaccinated, even when accounting for important variables like race, socioeconomic status, political affiliation, and psychological well-being. In other words, above and beyond anything else, one's sense of purpose in life was uniquely related to their willingness to get a COVID vaccine.

Why Might Purpose Be Related to Vaccine Willingness?

For some, the finding that purpose in life is related to vaccine willingness might seem surprising. However, there actually exists a rich (and ever-growing) psychological literature demonstrating the important role of purpose in relation to health and health-promoting behaviors. For example, the sense of purpose is associated with lower body mass index and exercise (Kim et al., 2020), as well as better health care utilization (Kim et al., 2014). Purposeful people also experience better sleep quality (Kim et al., 2015) and generally live longer (Hill and Turiano, 2014). Over the last decade, it has been shown that possessing a sense of purpose in life can have significant effects on one's health.

In an interview with Dr. Anthony Burrow, one of the authors of the study, he stated that the link between purpose and vaccine willingness "could be driven, in part, by purposeful individuals' desire to get back to work and resume their activities." This makes intuitive sense, given that purpose typically offers individuals a sense of guiding direction through the pursuit of goals and commitments (Ryff, 1989). With the COVID-19 pandemic having thrown those goals and commitments off-kilter, purposeful people might be among the most eager to return to normalcy. Yet, Burrow cautioned, "experimental and longitudinal data are needed to more fully flesh out these assumptions."

Although limited by its cross-sectional nature, this study sheds important light on the value of possessing a sense of purpose in life, particularly while in the throes of a global pandemic. President Biden himself has stated that we must, as a country, rally together with a “common purpose” in order to defeat COVID-19. This study suggests that there is potential value both in the continued messaging around purpose and also efforts to develop this salubrious psychological resource in others.