Anti-Vaxxers and the Art of the Con?

The US currently a serious problem with Covid vaccination 'holdouts', especially as the delta variant spreads. Such people, even if they become seriously ill in hospital, appear to prioritise their self image over the common good. Brooke Harrington (Dartmouth College) notes that none of the suggested strategies for dealing with anti-vaxxers and Covid deniers, appear to work. It has variously been said we should respect, shame or show empathy to such people. Harrington thinks the interventions fail, because holdouts don't value responses from any folk who are not part of one of their reference groups. A reference group is a body of contacts, whose good opinion is craved. People generally have multiple reference groups (e.g. family, peer group, church, political party etc). An anti-vaxxer changing their attitude to Covid, could be seen as 'social death' within a reference group. Harrington suggests that a fruitful strategy may involve applying techniques learned from 'the art of the con' (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/09/convince-anti-vaxxers ). Harrington notes that successful cons involve an 'operator' (the person making the con), a 'mark' (the person selected for conning) and a 'cooler' (an ally of the operator, who consoles the mark post con). The best 'coolers' come from a reference group of the 'mark'. Frequently, the 'mark' saves face and doesn't even report the con. Harrington suggests that social media could be used to identify and deploy 'coolers' from reference groups of pandemic holdouts, to coax them back into mainstream society. He is pessimistic about getting many 'coolers' from Fox News or the Republican party. Such individuals could, of course, be very effective in this role. Perhaps, with time, a few will emerge?