The Social Representation of Covid-19: How Collective Opinion Influences Individual Behaviour

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to argue that people’s decision to not get vaccinated against COVID- 19 – more commonly known as Coronavirus – in Romania is strongly enforced by distrust in what we would call scientific knowledge and an abnormal propensity towards mythical knowledge, regarded by many as nonscientific knowledge. In the following pages, I will present some of the psycho-social arguments regarding the motives of one’s choice of beliefs, the social representations that follow these motives and why the social representations that disregard scientific knowledge tend to have serious consequences on the society.