Dr. MA Zewei, MacMacDr. MA ZeweiYe, ShengquanShengquanYe2026-09-032026-09-032023Social Psychological and Personality Science, 2023, vol. 14(5), pp. 572-587.1948-55061948-5514http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11861/28946<jats:p>According to the smoke detector and functional flexibility principles of human behavioral immune system (BIS), the exposure to COVID-19 cues could motivate vaccine uptake. Using the tool of Google Trends, we tested that coronavirus-related searches—which assessed natural exposure to COVID-19 cues—would positively predict actual vaccination rates. As expected, coronavirus-related searches positively and significantly predicted vaccination rates in the United States (Study 1a) and across the globe (Study 2a) after accounting for a range of covariates. The stationary time series analyses with covariates and autocorrelation structure of the dependent variable confirmed that more coronavirus-related searches compared with last week indicated increases in vaccination rates compared with last week in the United States (Study 1b) and across the globe (Study 2b). With real-time web search data, psychological scientists could test their research questions in real-life settings and at a large scale to expand the ecological validity and generalizability of the findings.</jats:p>enCOVID-19 ConcernsBehavioral Immune System theoryVaccination RateGoogle TrendsTime SeriesPeer Reviewed Journal Article10.1177/19485506221106012