Apologizing for Intergroup Criticism Reduces Rejection of Public Health Officials’ Pro-Vaccine Messages

Compared to other medical experts, public health officials face added scrutiny of their pro-vaccine messages due to distrust of the US federal government. We consider reactions to such critical messages through the lens of conversational norms. Conversational pragmatics suggest that polite communication is essentially cooperative in nature, avoiding criticism of the other or excessive praise of the self. Applied to intergroup communication, this suggests that critical messages from outgroups will be viewed as impolite. Distrusted outgroup sources (such as government officials) are particularly expected to be uncooperative and impolite, increasing message rejection. Importantly, this perspective suggests that apologizing for the norm violation should mitigate these effects. Applying this reasoning to scientific messaging, we demonstrate that a message critical of the under-vaccinated is more likely to be rejected if made by a US federal public health official than by a private medical expert. However, this effect is reduced if the public health official apologizes in advance for violating the norm against criticizing other groups. Improved perceptions of the apologizing source's motives and reduced message threat were associated with higher vaccination intentions. Practical and theoretical implications for intergroup communication are discussed.