My current take on the analogy debate is this: The inoculation analogy is both limiting and flexible enough.

Josh Compton

After Michael Pfau and I offered what was, prior to this chapter, the most compre- hensive narrative review of inoculation scholarship, we concluded that inoculation, while a mature theory, was “far from retiring.” We predicted prodigious theory development and application, and as this review will show, this happened and is happening. Researchers continue to propel inoculation scholarship forward in quantity and theoretical depth. Some scholarship confirms findings from the first years of the theory; other discoveries challenge fundamental assumptions about resistance in general and inoculation theory in particular. And all the while, the original analogy is pulled and stretched.

Compton, J. (2013). Inoculation theory. In J. P. Dillard & L. Shen (Eds.), The Sage handbook of persuasion: Developments in theory and practice, 2nd ed., (pp. 220-237). LosAngeles, CA: Sage.