The role of religiosity in product and technology acceptance: Evidence from COVID-19 vaccines

Previous research on religion and economic phenomena has suggested that religious attitudes are related to risk aversion. Moreover, risk attitudes play a significant role in the adoption and diffusion of technological innovations. However, the role of religiosity in technology-related phenomena is still relatively unexplored. The present study fills this gap and investigates the impact of religiosity on the acceptance of innovative technologies and products in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, we frame COVID-19 vaccines as new products based on innovative production technologies and show that their acceptance by the general public is negatively associated with country-level religiosity. Furthermore, we investigate the role of religious leaders in endorsing COVID-19 vaccines to their followers. Our hypotheses are empirically tested on 1179 weekly observations of vaccination rates in 22 European countries characterised by different levels of religiosity. The results suggest that religiosity is negatively associated with vaccine rates after controlling for country-level social and economic factors. Conversely, the countries where Roman Catholics are the majority religious group display a positive association between religiosity and vaccine rates, highlighting the role of leaders in endorsing the COVID-19 vaccination campaign.