Heterogeneous attitudinal profiles towards gene editing: Evidence from latent class analysis.

Advances in gene-editing technology have important implications for the treatment and prevention of disease. Accordingly, it is important to understand public perceptions towards gene editing, as the public's willingness to endorse gene editing may be as important as technological breakthroughs themselves. Previous research has almost exclusively examined attitudes towards gene editing on specific issues, but has not addressed how attitudes towards gene editing across a range of issues coalesce in individuals: that is, the degree to which discrete, heterogeneous attitudinal profiles exist versus a simple support/oppose continuum. Here, we addressed this issue using latent class analysis on data from The Pew Research Center (N = 4726; US residents) across a wide range of gene-editing topics. We found that attitudes towards gene editing cohere into 10 distinct latent classes that showed some evidence of a support/oppose continuum, but also for clear qualitative differences between each class, even with support or oppose classes, on a number of issues. The most opposed classes significantly differed from the supporter classes in age, sex, political ideology and self-rated knowledge. These findings provide evidence that attitudes towards gene editing are heterogeneous and public discourse, as well as policy making need to consider a range of arguments when evaluating this technology.

COVID-19 and seasonal flu vaccination hesitancy: Links to personality and general intelligence in a large, UK cohort.

Vaccines are a powerful and relatively safe tool to protect against a range of serious diseases. Nonetheless, a sizeable minority of people express 'vaccination hesitancy'. Accordingly, understanding the bases of this hesitancy represents a significant public health opportunity. In the present study we sought to examine the role of Big Five personality traits and general intelligence as predictors of vaccination hesitancy across two vaccination types in a large (N = 9667) sample of UK adults drawn from the Understanding Society longitudinal household study. We found that lower levels of general intelligence were associated with COVID-19 and seasonal flu vaccination hesitancy, and lower levels of neuroticism was associated with COVID-19 vaccination hesitancy. Although the self-reported reasons for being vaccine hesitant indicated a range of factors were important to people, lower general intelligence was associated with virtually all of these reasons. In contrast, Big Five personality traits showed more nuanced patterns of association.