Priyanka is a team member of the Behavioral Health and Social Psychology (BHS) Lab, advised by Psychology Professors Jerusha Detweiler-Bedell and Brian Detweiler-Bedell, this collaborative research team presented their findings on “COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy And Intentions Among Liberal Arts College Students” at the 2022 Society for Personality and Social Psychology conference in San Francisco, CA.
“I was surprised by just how much power I had as an undergrad in developing this research idea, I felt really connected and involved in this research and that has been a really amazing experience and something that is unique to being at a smaller school.
Attending and presenting at SPSP allowed me to gain so much more knowledge and experience about other avenues of research and how conferences work as a place of networking and sharing ideas. This experience allowed me to connect more with my Lab team and made me feel proud to represent LC at SPSP.”
Key Research findings: In their research, the BHS lab team compared their survey results on COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy and intentions among liberal arts college students to those of the Kaiser Family Foundation’s nationwide survey. They found similar trends in vaccine intentions among Lewis & Clark College students and people in the United States. While Lewis & Clark students had a lower vaccine hesitancy rate than the nation overall, students of color were more hesitant than white students, a trend also reflected in the nationwide findings between Black and white respondents. Additionally, politically conservative LC students and national respondents were both more hesitant than liberals. The top three barriers to vaccination at LC also aligned with national findings, being fear of side effects, lack of trust in the government, and concerns about the newness of the vaccine. Read more about the BHS lab at: https://college.lclark.edu/labs/behavioral_health_and_social_psychology/.