This paper evaluates the relative importance of psychic costs of vaccination compared
to monetary costs through a field experiment that randomizes several factors affecting
tetanus vaccine take-up among women in rural Nigeria. Although conventional wisdom
highlights the relevance of psychic costs, we find no evidence that psychic costs limit vaccine
take-up. Of the women who were incentivized just to show up at a clinic unconditional
on vaccine take-up, 95.7 percent chose to get vaccinated anyway. Priming about disease
severity increases the perceived severity of disease, but not vaccine take-up. Rather than
psychic costs, monetary costs are major barriers to vaccination.