Reply to Weisel: From polarization to vaccination and back.

In his comment (1), Ori Weisel conducted a preregistered experiment that closely followed the methodology and analysis in our paper (2). He examined whether vaccination against COVID-19 can be understood as a social contract even given strong animosity between existing natural groups (i.e., the opposing political preferences that separate US citizens into Democrats vs. Republicans). The experiment conceptually replicated our findings and thus addressed a limitation noted in the original paper: external validity. Specifically, the study revealed that participants’ natural group membership did not affect their conditional generosity toward vaccinated vs. unvaccinated others; this replicated previous … [↵][1]1To whom correspondence may be addressed. Email: cornelia.betsch{at}uni-erfurt.de. [1]: #xref-corresp-1-1