how is fear appeal used in public health messaging

Bethesda, MD 20894, Web Policies One critique of the general study of fear-based persuasive appeals is that such research is typically studied in the lab rather than in real-world contexts in which message exposure and processing are not controlled and discussion of those messages with friends and family is possible. A review of the gender differences in fear and anxiety, A cognitive-functional model for the effects of discrete negative emotions on information processing, attitude change, and recall, Emotional flow in persuasive health messages, The role of a narratives emotional flow in promoting persuasive outcomes, Unrealistic hope and unnecessary fear: Exploring how sensationalistic news stories influence health behavior motivation, A protection motivation theory of fear appeals and attitude change, Appealing to fear: A meta-analysis of fear appeal effectiveness and theories, Matching health messages to monitor-blunter coping styles to motivate screening mammography, Putting the fear back into fear appeals: The extended parallel process model, A meta-analysis of fear appeals: Implications for effective public health campaigns, Examining the influence of trait anxiety/repressionsensitization on individuals reactions to fear appeals, A conceptualization of threat communications and protective health behavior, Risk-perception: Differences between adolescents and adults, The impact of vulnerability to and severity of a health risk on processing and acceptance of fear-arousing communications: A meta-analysis, Pathways to persuasion: Cognitive and experiential responses to health-promoting mass media messages, Effects of false positive and negative arousal feedback on persuasion, Threat, efficacy, and uncertainty in the first 5 months of national print and electronic news coverage of the H1N1 virus, The emotional effects of news frames on information processing and opinion formation, Fear and anxiety: Animal models and human cognitive psychophysiology, Threat appeals and persuasion: Seeking and finding the elusive curvilinear effect, Effects of threatening and reassuring components of fear appeals on physiological and verbal measures of emotion and attitudes, Narrative conjunctions of caregiver and child: A comparative perspective on socialization through stories, Monitoring and blunting: Validation of a questionnaire to assess styles of information seeking under threat, Laughing and crying: Mixed emotions, compassion, and the effectiveness of a YouTube PSA about skin cancer, Message properties, mediating states, and manipulation checks: Claims, evidence, and data analysis in experimental persuasive message effects research, The extended parallel process model: Illuminating the gaps in research, Emotion elicits the social sharing of emotion: Theory and empirical review, Fear control and danger control: A test of the extended parallel process model (EPPM), Message-Induced Self-Efficacy and its Role in Health Behavior Change, Worry and Rumination as a Consideration When Designing Health and Risk Messages, Lifespan and Developmental Considerations in Health and Risk Message Design, Using Pictures in Health and Risk Messages, Immersive Virtual Environments, Avatars, and Agents for Health, Spiral of Silence in Health and Risk Messaging, Physiological Measures of Wellness and Message Processing, Embarrassment and Health and Risk Messaging, Simultaneous and Successive Emotion Experiences and Health and Risk Messaging. However, a moderate amount of fear could be just enough to motivate more adaptive actions to neutralize the threat. The physical experience of fear is generated by an extensive network of fear-related neural structures in the brain, particularly the amygdala (Lang, Davis, & hman, 2000; hman, 2008). Although the distinction between the two has not been studied empirically, and the word anxious is frequently included among the emotion words used to assess fear responses to persuasive appeals, it is useful to recognize that the experience of fear and anxiety are distinguishable, with fear carrying the potential for more adaptive action. Goldenbeld, C., Twisk, D., & Houwing, S. (2008). Changes in Mental Health, Emotional Distress, and Substance Use Affecting Women Experiencing Violence and Their Service Providers during COVID-19 in a U.S. Southern State. He found that fear appeal manipulations resulted in a moderate relationship with perceived fear (r = .34), attitudes (r = .20), and behavior (r = .17). Shoba Sreenivasan, Ph.D., and Linda E. Weinberger, Ph.D. Find a therapist to combat fear and anxiety, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trf.2007.11.001, Small Hassles, Big Stress: Why the Little Things Get to Us, How to Tell if Your Relationships Are Genuine, 18 Common Logical Fallacies and Persuasion Techniques, The 3 Parts of Anxiety: Thoughts, Emotions, and Behaviors, Using Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs to Discover What Motivates You, The 5 Types of People Who Withdraw From Social Life, Benzodiazepine Withdrawal Tied to Serious Long-Term Harms, How to Boost Your Courage Without Battling Your Fears, Why Sound Is So Important in Horror Movies, How to Prepare for Your First Therapy Session. Thus, in this context, the emphasis is on how existing fear or anxiety may be minimized by the providers communication style rather than the providers communication being the stimulus for fear. For instance, there is little work to confirm that people actually stay attuned to an entire fear appeal encountered in their daily lives or change the channel to avoid the unpleasant information (Witte & Allen, 2000). Our thoughts and feelings aren't the problem. Given that fear-based messages, which may be perceived as a more manipulative message style, carry a higher likelihood of defensive processing and reactance, fear appeals may be a risky message strategy to use for this age group. Moreover, research also suggests that fear may motivate social sharing of messages, which can in turn allow for more widespread influence of fear-based messages. Once a moderate amount of fear is conveyed, there is no further benefit in adding more fear. The authors note that scientific studies of fear-based campaigns around the world draw mixed conclusions: some reject the approach; others conclude that "the stronger the fear appeal the better." 180 on Fear. 2020 Feb;26(2):151. doi: 10.1038/s41591-020-0775-x. Med Anthropol. Horror movies use sound to frighten audiences. Despite the wealth of research on the effects of fear-based messages, numerous limitations have been pointed out in the existing literature. Thus, it is reasonable to imagine that fear-evoking narrativeswhether in the media or told by parentsare effective vehicles for persuading children, perhaps even more so than didactic fear-based messages. Importantly, Witte and Allen (2000) did not find support for the EPPMs predicted threat by efficacy interaction. The fear-arousal appeal. Paul Mongeau also addresses the history and current state of the fear appeal literature in his chapter of the second edition of The Sage Handbook of Persuasion: Developments in Theory and Practice. As such, message components of fear appeals include threat and efficacy. Thus anxiety is typically a more diffuse emotional experience with a less clearly defined action tendency or behavioral target than fear. Although as yet untested, the emotional flow perspective is unique in highlighting that emotional states like fear can be fleeting and rapidly evolve into other states, and this sequencing could be useful in persuasive message design. With initial exposure to a fear appeal, recipients engage in a threat appraisal. Their results indicated that most stories (86%) referenced threat and of these, 94% did so in the first third of the story. Thus, the influence of the emotional arousal versus its related cognitions is often blurred. Censorship and Suppression of Covid-19 Heterodoxy: Tactics and Counter-Tactics. Discover the world's . There is some difference in opinion as to whether fear appeals are productive or counterproductive. Maddux and Rogers (1983) argued that individuals who were high in both threat and efficacy perceptions would be motivated to protect themselves from the threat at hand and therefore the most likely to engage in adaptive, danger-control behaviors. As the United States faces out-of-control spikes from Covid-19, with people refusing to take recommended, often even mandated, precautions, our public health announcements from governments,. More recently, scholars have adopted a more nuanced approach, noting that messages that include both threat components and efficacy components, and thus are well-categorized as fear appeals, can evoke other emotions in addition to fear and that these other emotions have unique influence on persuasive outcomes. However, the participants in this high-fear condition were actually less likely than those who saw milder images about tooth decay to improve their brushing and flossing habits in a post-test one week after exposure to the initial fear appeal. Monitors, however, responded to both message types similarly. Fear produces a significant though small amount of change across the board. The information bombardment on social media is loaded with them. Although no new models of fear appeals have specifically been advanced since the EPPM, theorists have considered how a range of emotions, including fear, might generate persuasive effect. Example: thetruth.com. If fear is used to motivate attitudinal and behavioral change, it should be used judiciously. Whereas some . Fear appeal is a term used in psychology, sociology and marketing. By the 1990s, Kim Wittes extended parallel process model (EPPM) gained traction, and her 1992 piece in the journal Communication Monographs that first proposes the model is a good place to start understanding this perspective. Given personality traits influence perceptions of events, and given emotions are based on such perceptions, personality traits could influence whether or not a fear appeal is likely to evoke fear, to what degree, and toward what end. A student interested in the historical roots of fear appeal theorizing could start with seminal pieces from Carl Hovlands Yale research group, including the 1953 book by Hovland, Janis, and Kelly titled Communication and Persuasion: Psychological Studies of Opinion Change, as well as later journal articles reporting empirical data related to fear appeals. doi: 10.4045/tidsskr.20.0346. Visit one of the web links below and review the health promotion message. Among the "Big Five" personality traits, conscientiousness isespecially predictive of living a longer life. His 1971 theoretical article published in the American Journal of Public Health includes a discussion of previous works dating back to Darwin alongside a discussion of promising ways to persuade people to adopt preventative health behaviors. Unauthorized use of these marks is strictly prohibited. After decades of research, it is clear that fear can indeed motivate positive health behaviors and that exposure to information about threat susceptibility, severity, response efficacy, and self-efficacy is key to this process. In their experiment, participants who saw the most graphic and frightening images of tooth decay and poor oral hygiene rated the material as the most worrisome and interesting compared to those in other conditions who saw less disturbing images or just heard a lecture about cavities. Further, of the studies that do measure fear, they tend to do so in very limited ways, typically self-report of emotional arousal in response to the message generally. Indeed, with developmental stages in mind, there is reason to believe that different message structures would be more appropriate for different age groups. Which can you control and which can you not? Advancing psychology to benefit society and improve lives. Mongeaus (1998) meta-analysis examined the influence of fear appeals on perceived fear, attitudes, and behaviors. eCollection 2022. As health professionals develop health communication for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), we implore that these communication approaches do not include fear appeals. Indeed, the more intense the emotional experience or the greater the emotional disruption, the more likely it is to be socially shared and shared repetitively over an extended period of time (Rim, 2009). An overview of the scholarly work on the emotion of fear, fear appeal theories, and fear as a variable that impacts post-message attitudes and behaviors can provide insights as to what is currently known, as well as what remains to be learned about how fear can be incorporated into persuasive messages and to what effect. When a growing body of empirical evidence found a positive linear relationship between fear and persuasion (that is, the more frightened participants were, the more persuasive the message, generally speaking), the drive model no longer seemed a plausible explanation for why fear appeals affect audiences (Beck & Frankel, 1981; Giesen & Hendrick, 1974; Mewborn & Rogers, 1979). 2023 Jan 21;21:101343. doi: 10.1016/j.ssmph.2023.101343. Tidsskr Nor Laegeforen. Most crucially, and from a practical standpoint, the controlled laboratory settings and forced message exposure used in many fear appeal studies may not translate to real-world settings. Further, many of the 12 propositions originally articulated within the EPPM have not been consistently tested. For example. Psychological and behavioral responses to the declaration of COVID-19 as a pandemic: A comparative study of Hong Kong, Singapore, and the U.S. NCI CPTC Antibody Characterization Program. Motivated attention refers to the degree of approach or avoidance response to the message based on the receivers initial emotional response; motivated processing refers to how motivated the message receiver is to process the message carefully; and message expectations pertain to the audiences degree of certainty that the message will offer reassurance or not. Y ou probably still remember public service ads that scared you: The cigarette smoker with throat cancer. How Blame and Shame Can Fuel Depression in Rape Victims, Getting More Hugs Is Linked to Fewer Symptoms of Depression, Interacting With Outgroup Members Reduces Prejudice, Practice Improves the Potential for Future Plasticity, How Financial Infidelity Can Affect Your Gray Divorce. According to the model, people respond to health risk messages through two forms of cognitive apprais als that occur sequentially. Two decades later, Howard Leventhals work provides helpful summaries of those who came before as well as his own conceptualization of the parallel process model. Printed from Oxford Research Encyclopedias, Communication. Article: Appealing to Fear: A Meta-Analysis of Fear Appeal Effectiveness and Theories, by Melanie Tannenbaum, PhD, Kristina Wilson, PhD, and Dolores Abarracin, PhD, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Justin Hepler, PhD, University of Nevada, Reno; Rick Zimmerman, PhD, University of Missouri, St. Louis; and Lindsey Saul, PhD, and Samantha Jacobs, MPH, Virginia Commonwealth University, Psychological Bulletin, published online Oct. 23, 2015. Still, meta-analyses across a range of fear- appeal studies have helped clarify the direction and magnitude of fears influence on persuasive outcomes and associated cognitions. The results replicated previous meta-analyses, demonstrating a significant positive relationship between fear appeal manipulations and attitudes, intentions, and behaviors (average weighted d = .29). As such, it is evident that fear is used to persuade even very young audiences. Six children were among the dead after a Russian missile attack on Uman; Russian soldiers are likely being placed in improvised cells consisting of holes in the ground as punishment, the UK's MoD . Fear appeals are often used in public health service announcements and health behavior change campaigns. For example, fear appeals begin with threat information followed by efficacy information. However, cautionary tales, which tell the stories of people who ignore the dangers of a forbidden act and suffer as a result, have frequently been used to encourage compliant behavior in children (P. J. Miller & Moore, 1989). Before Psychological Bulletin, 141, 11781204. Yet fears associated motivation for protection from the threat may still lead to message processing, depending on the audiences expectations regarding the remainder of the message content. Shir-Raz Y, Elisha E, Martin B, Ronel N, Guetzkow J. Minerva. 2022 Oct 10;17(10):e0275854. Effects are most apparent in women and for one-time behaviors, says study. However, this approach offers a limited understanding of the experience of fear throughout message exposure. Some recent studies have examined the structure of health news in ways that speak to the link between emotional arousal, most notably fear, and persuasive outcomes. The contributors demonstrate the necessity of basing message design decisions on appropriate theories of human behavior and communication effectiveness by synthesizing and integrating knowledge and insights from theory and research in communication and health behavior change. Fear is the ultimate form of emotional baggage. This deeper processing in the face of uncertainty occurs, according to the CFM, because the audience member is trying to find some piece of information that might satisfy the fear-induced goal of protection. Coping information It is to this literature we now turn. How can peoples attitudes and behavior be changed? It's the meaning we attach to them and the way we act on behalf of them. In order to motivate students to perform well academically, teachers and counselors will emphasize the importance of exams, papers, and classroom participation. They can also sometimes be found through online scholarly search engines, such as Google Scholar, PubMed, or the American Psychological Associations PsycNET website. PLoS One. Although the predicted interaction between threat and efficacy appraisals lies at the heart of the EPPM, the full model includes 12 propositions detailing numerous intricate relationships between the different types of cognitions, fear, and message effectiveness (Witte, 1992). However, despite anecdotal evidence that physicians communication may trigger fear in patients for the purpose of motivating behavior change or compliance, the intentional use of fear-based messages in the clinical context has not received attention in the academic literature. Exerting effort may be preferred to doing nothing at all. At the other end of the age spectrum, there is reason to believe that the elderly may also have unique reactions to fear-evoking messages compared to younger people. Fear appeals have three major components: the message, the audience, and the recommended behavior.
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