Me. Welcome to the You Are Not So Smart Podcast.

Episode 189. Oh, oh, oh, oh. Oh, and do me. COVID-19. 19. That's right, brothers and sisters, COVID-19.

This has to end.

And now that we're headed into the seventh month of this, here in the United States, where we continue to set records,

many of us have fully accepted that this is going to last a long time, much longer than we thought it would last back in March, and given the pitfalls of human behavior, which we've discussed on this show, and the political landscape surrounding us, which has not done a great job in ending this nightmare, there's a lot of attention

now, turning to what seems to be the only thing that could truly end this, a vaccine. This is a show that usually deals with the psychology and neuroscience and sociology and social science of reasoning

and decision-making and self-delusion and human behavior.

So at first, when I was gathering interviews for this episode, I thought the focus would be explaining a few

polls by Pugh and others that came out not too long ago, which all found that a third to one half of Americans of United States citizens would

not get a vaccine. They said they would not get vaccinated against COVID-19, even if the vaccine was available right now,

easy to get and free.

So I thought that this was another example of the tribal signaling we detailed in our episode

about anti-maskers. In short, I thought, as with masks and staying home instead of

going to restaurants and bars.

In a very polarized time, a fact-based issue had become politicized.

Vaccinating or refusing to vaccinate was going to be another badge of loyalty or a symbol of shame

depending on who you considered us and who you considered them and unaware that this is

what is motivating these sorts of attitudes, people would search for reasons,

which they would then communicate and post on social media and portray and punditry and so on with justifications and rationalizations tailored so that they would seem reasonable to the people who share their values.

But as I gathered interviews about what might have led to this particular vaccine hesitancy,

it became clear very quickly that this behavior was driven by something else, something completely different.

So that's one thing we're going to talk about in this episode at length.

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