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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Psychol.
Sec. Personality and Social Psychology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1481147

Social Factors Influencing Behavioral Intentions to Vaccinate: Personality Traits and Cues to Action

Provisionally accepted
Zeming Li Zeming Li 1*Xinying Sun Xinying Sun 2
  • 1 School of public health, Guangxi Medical University, Nanning, Guangxi Zhuang Region, China
  • 2 School of public health, Peking University, Beijing, Beijing Municipality, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Objectives: This study integrates the Five-Factor Model (FFM) of personality traits with the Health Belief Model (HBM) to examine associations among personality traits, cues to action, and vaccination intentions.Method: An online survey was conducted in April 2021, with 2,098 participants (mean age = 31.22 years, SD = 8.29) completing the study. The questionnaire assessed HBM constructs and the FFM personality traits. Spearman correlation coefficients were used to evaluate associations among ordinal variables, while Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) explored complex relationships between latent variables.The findings indicate that self-efficacy (β = 0.198) and perceived barriers (β = 0.515) exert the most significant direct positive influences on vaccination intentions. Cues to action, particularly recommendations from family members (β = 0.113) and doctors (β = 0.092), also significantly affect vaccination intentions. Notably, personality traits indirectly influence vaccination intentions through self-efficacy and perceived barriers. Furthermore, agreeableness most significantly affects family suggestions, while neuroticism strongly influences recommendations from authority figures and healthcare providers, with extraversion notably impacting suggestions from peers.The study highlights the influence of personality traits on cues to action, with neuroticism linked to authority influence, extraversion to peer influence, and agreeableness to familial influence. These findings emphasize the importance of incorporating individual differences into public health policies and vaccination promotion strategies. Future research should further explore the effects of diverse personality traits and community-specific profiles on vaccination behaviors to enhance intervention effectiveness.

    Keywords: personality traits, cues to action, Five-Factor Model, health belief model, Vaccination

    Received: 15 Aug 2024; Accepted: 06 Jan 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 Li and Sun. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Zeming Li, School of public health, Guangxi Medical University, Nanning, 530021, Guangxi Zhuang Region, China

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.