Features of Empathy–Arousing Strategic Messages

ABSTRACT

There has been evidence that empathy-arousing messages might be an effective and ethical approach to persuasion in health communication. Knowledge of intrinsic message features is needed to better design and craft such messages. The goals of this research were (a) to identify message features with the potential to arouse state empathy, (b) to verify the association between the identified message features and state empathy, and (c) to determine if state empathy mediates the impact of the message features on persuasion and social stigma. In the present study, a coding scheme was developed for empathy-arousing message features; 532 individuals recruited from Qualtrics Panel each viewed five messages randomly selected from a total of 20 stimuli messages that varied in empathy message features. Multilevel modeling analyses confirmed the association between the identified message features and state empathy; and state empathy’s mediating role of message feature effects on persuasion and social stigma.     

The effectiveness of empathy- versus fear-arousing antismoking PSAs

Building on a previous study (Shen, 2010), this paper investigates the effectiveness of fear- versus empathy-arousing antismoking PSAs and examines the roles of message-induced fear and state empathy in persuasion. Twelve professionally produced antismoking PSAs were used as stimuli messages in a 3 (message type: empathy, fear vs. control) × 4 (messages) mixed design study. The 260 participants were randomly assigned to each message type and watched four PSAs presented in a random sequence. Results from multilevel modeling analyses showed that empathy-arousing messages are potentially more effective than fear-arousing ones. Both fear and state empathy were found to have a positive direct effect on persuasion. However, fear also had a negative indirect impact on persuasion by activating psychological reactance, while state empathy also had a positive indirect effect by inhibiting psychological reactance. Implications for persuasion, health communication campaigns, and future research were discussed.     

The Effectiveness of Empathy- Versus Fear-Arousing Antismoking PSAs

Building on a previous study (Shen, 2010), this paper investigates the effectiveness of fear- versus empathy-arousing antismoking PSAs and examines the roles of message-induced fear and state empathy in persuasion. Twelve professionally produced antismoking PSAs were used as stimuli messages in a 3 (message type: empathy, fear vs. control)?×?4 (messages) mixed design study. The 260 participants were randomly assigned to each message type and watched four PSAs presented in a random sequence. Results from multilevel modeling analyses showed that empathy-arousing messages are potentially more effective than fear-arousing ones. Both fear and state empathy were found to have a positive direct effect on persuasion. However, fear also had a negative indirect impact on persuasion by activating psychological reactance, while state empathy also had a positive indirect effect by inhibiting psychological reactance. Implications for persuasion, health communication campaigns, and future research were discussed.     

Examining the use of forceful language when designing exercise persuasive messages for adults: a test of conceptualizing reactance arousal as a two-step process

This investigation tests a conceptualization of reactance as a two-step process. This conceptualization was recently tested with college students, but research testing this conceptualization among primarily adult samples does not currently exist. Psychological reactance theory (PRT) states that individuals exposed to a threat or elimination of a freedom will experience reactance and subsequently be motivated to restore the freedom. Specifically, it is hypothesized that individuals will perceive persuasive messages containing forceful language as a threat to their personal freedom, which will be followed by reactance, manifested in a latent variable composed of anger and negative cognitions. This hypothesis was tested within the context of persuasive messages aimed at encouraging members (N = 247) to participate in weight lifting or group exercise programs at a health and fitness center. Results support conceptualizing reactance as a 2-step process. In addition, results indicate that a primarily adult sample responds unfavorably to forceful persuasive messages advocating the aforementioned exercise activities. In finding support for conceptualizing reactance as a two-step process, we encourage health campaigners and PRT researchers to employ this measure to provide consistency to future PRT studies.     

Examining the Use of Forceful Language When Designing Exercise Persuasive Messages for Adults: A Test of Conceptualizing Reactance Arousal as a Two-Step Process

This investigation tests a conceptualization of reactance as a two-step process. This conceptualization was recently tested with college students, but research testing this conceptualization among primarily adult samples does not currently exist. Psychological reactance theory (PRT) states that individuals exposed to a threat or elimination of a freedom will experience reactance and subsequently be motivated to restore the freedom. Specifically, it is hypothesized that individuals will perceive persuasive messages containing forceful language as a threat to their personal freedom, which will be followed by reactance, manifested in a latent variable composed of anger and negative cognitions. This hypothesis was tested within the context of persuasive messages aimed at encouraging members (N = 247) to participate in weight lifting or group exercise programs at a health and fitness center. Results support conceptualizing reactance as a 2-step process. In addition, results indicate that a primarily adult sample responds unfavorably to forceful persuasive messages advocating the aforementioned exercise activities. In finding support for conceptualizing reactance as a two-step process, we encourage health campaigners and PRT researchers to employ this measure to provide consistency to future PRT studies.     

Targeting Smokers With Empathy Appeal Antismoking Public Service Announcements: A Field Experiment

A field experiment study (N = 189) was conducted to investigate the effectiveness of empathy appeal antismoking messages and their potential advantage over fear appeal messages. Data from 12 antismoking public service announcements showed that (a) smokers resist antismoking messages and (b) overall empathy appeal was equally effective as fear appeal messages. There was also evidence for moderators. First, empathy messages were more effective to women than to men. Second, fear appeal messages were more effective to occasional smokers than were empathy messages. Third, empathy messages were more effective to regular smokers than were fear appeal messages. Implications for audience segmentation and message targeting in public health antismoking efforts are discussed.     

A systematic review of three approaches for constructing physical activity messages: What messages work and what improvements are needed?

Background  

To motivate individuals to adhere to a regular physical activity regime, guidelines must be supplemented with persuasive messages that are disseminated widely. While substantial research has examined effective strategies for disseminating physical activity messages, there has been no systematic effort to examine optimal message content. This paper reviews studies that evaluate the effectiveness of three approaches for constructing physical activity messages including tailoring messages to suit individual characteristics of message recipients (message tailoring), framing messages in terms of gains versus losses (message framing), and targeting messages to affect change in self-efficacy (i.e., a theoretical determinant of behavior change).     

Utilizing Audiovisual and Gain-Framed Messages to Attenuate Psychological Reactance Toward Weight Management Health Messages

Guided by the psychological reactance theory, this study predicted that gain-framed messages and audiovisual content could counteract state reactance and increase the persuasiveness of weight management health messages. Data from a 2 (message frame: gain/loss) × 2 (modality: audiovisual/text) × 2 (message repetition) within-subjects experiment (N = 82) indicated that in the context of weight management messages for college students, gain-framed messages indeed mitigate psychological reactance. Furthermore, the modality and the frame of the health message interacted in such a way that gain-framed messages in an audiovisual modality generated the highest motivations to comply with the recommendations in the persuasive health messages.     

Does culture matter?: a cross-national investigation of women's responses to cancer prevention campaigns

We examined how culture influences the persuasive effects of health campaigns that promote early screening for cancers that occur in women. Two message dimensions were included: individualistic vs. collectivistic appeal and gain vs. loss frame. A total of 955 females from three countries-the United States, South Korea, and Japan-participated in the experiment. From the results, we found that message framing alone did not significantly influence the effectiveness of public campaigns for women's cancer prevention; and this tendency was similar across the three countries. Gain-framed messages are likely to be more persuasive when combined with a collectivistic appeal, however, whereas loss-framed messages tend to be more effective when combined with an individualistic appeal in both the United States and South Korea; but this result was not the case for Japan. Based on the findings, we suggested theoretical and managerial implications as well as several directions for future research.     

Motivating women and men to take protective action against rape: examining direct and indirect persuasive fear appeals

This article examines the effectiveness of persuasive fear appeals in motivating women to enroll in self-defense classes to take protective action against rape. Witte's extended parallel process model is used as a framework to examine the relations between perceived invulnerability, perceived fear, and fear control processes. Because women may perceive invulnerability to rape, persuasive fear appeals targeted toward them may be ineffective in achieving attitude, intention, and behavioral change toward protecting themselves. One possible solution is to persuade men to talk with women about whom they care. Results indicated that women did not perceive invulnerability to rape, and although there was no differential impact between high- and low-threat messages, women did report positive intention and behaviors in response to direct fear appeals. Moreover, men reported positive intention and behaviors in response to indirect fear appeals.     

Historical Trends in the Use of Television in Health Education

Although health education is a relatively new professional discipline, health educators have actively utilized television for informational and persuasive purposes since its inception as a public mass medium. Informational messages have been developed for classroom and public television, while persuasive messages have been developed for commercial television. With the current health education emphasis on developing and maintaining behaviors conducive to health, the school health educator can blend both informational and persuasive methods to create a more dynamic classroom teaching environment.     

Temporal Consequences,Message Framing,and Consideration of Future Consequences: Persuasion Effects on Adult Fruit Intake Intention and Resolve

Message framing is a persuasive strategy that has seen mixed evidence for promoting fruit intake intentions, potentially because framed messages for fruit intake have not (a) explicitly compared short-term consequences versus long-term consequences, (b) considered individual-level differences in time perspective, and (c) used alternative measures of fruit intake intentions. In the present online study, the effects of persuasive messages created from temporal context (short term vs. long term) and message frame (gain framed vs. loss framed) were investigated on fruit intake intentions and resolve among a sample of Dutch adults who were categorized as either present oriented or future oriented. For intention and resolve, results showed a significant Type of Frame × Type of Temporal Context interaction, such that gain-framed messages were more persuasive when combined with long-term consequences and loss-framed messages were more persuasive when combined with short-term consequences. The effect sizes for these differences were similar for resolve and intention, but only differences for intentions were significant. No other effects were found. These results demonstrate that message framing theory may usefully consider the inclusion of temporal context of outcomes and alternative motivation measures to maximize their persuasive effects.     

Impact of locus of control on health message effectiveness

This article examined how individuals' locus of control might moderate the effect of health message frames. An experiment was conducted whereby participants read either individual- or social-responsibility message frames after their locus of control was primed. Results indicated that messages presented in individual-responsibility frames were more persuasive when people were primed with internal locus of control, whereas social-responsibility framed appeals were more persuasive when people were primed with external locus of control. These results were found for individuals in both high and low cognitive load conditions. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.     

The relative persuasiveness of gain-framed and loss-framed messages for encouraging disease prevention behaviors: a meta-analytic review

A meta-analytic review of 93 studies (N = 21,656) finds that in disease prevention messages, gain-framed appeals, which emphasize the advantages of compliance with the communicator's recommendation, are statistically significantly more persuasive than loss-framed appeals, which emphasize the disadvantages of noncompliance. This difference is quite small (corresponding to r = .03), however, and appears attributable to a relatively large (and statistically significant) effect for messages advocating dental hygiene behaviors. Despite very good statistical power, the analysis finds no statistically significant differences in persuasiveness between gain- and loss-framed messages concerning other preventive actions such as safer-sex behaviors, skin cancer prevention behaviors, or diet and nutrition behaviors.     

Using language intensity to increase the success of a family intervention to protect children from ultraviolet radiation: predictions from language expectancy theory

BACKGROUND: Even though people are informed about skin cancer prevention, they do not always comply with prevention advice. From Language Expectancy Theory, it was predicted that messages with high language intensity would improve compliance with sun safety recommendations and that this effect would be enhanced with deductive argument style. METHODS: Parents (N = 841) from a pediatric clinic and elementary schools received sun safety messages (newsletters, brochures, tip cards) by mail that varied in language intensity and logical style. Effects on attitudes and behavior were tested in a pretest-posttest factorial design. RESULTS: As hypothesized, parents receiving messages with high- as opposed to low-intensity language complied more with sun safety advice. Messages with highly intense language were more persuasive when the arguments were formatted in a deductive style; low language intensity was more persuasive in inductively styled messages. CONCLUSIONS: By carefully adjusting messages features, health professionals can obtain further compliance beyond that produced by educating people about health risks and creating favorable attitudes and self-efficacy expectations. Highly intense language may be a good general strategy in prevention messages and works better when conclusions and recommendations are offered explicitly to recipients, especially when advice is aimed at reducing their personal risk.     

Persuasive messaging to increase COVID-19 vaccine uptake intentions

Widespread vaccination remains the best option for controlling the spread of COVID-19 and ending the pandemic. Despite the considerable disruption the virus has caused to people’s lives, many people are still hesitant to receive a vaccine. Without high rates of uptake, however, the pandemic is likely to be prolonged. Here we use two survey experiments to study how persuasive messaging affects COVID-19 vaccine uptake intentions. In the first experiment, we test a large number of treatment messages. One subgroup of messages draws on the idea that mass vaccination is a collective action problem and highlighting the prosocial benefit of vaccination or the reputational costs that one might incur if one chooses not to vaccinate. Another subgroup of messages built on contemporary concerns about the pandemic, like issues of restricting personal freedom or economic security. We find that persuasive messaging that invokes prosocial vaccination and social image concerns is effective at increasing intended uptake and also the willingness to persuade others and judgments of non-vaccinators. We replicate this result on a nationally representative sample of Americans and observe that prosocial messaging is robust across subgroups, including those who are most hesitant about vaccines generally. The experiments demonstrate how persuasive messaging can induce individuals to be more likely to vaccinate and also create spillover effects to persuade others to do so as well.The first experiment in this study was registered at clinicaltrials.gov and can be found under the ID number NCT04460703. This study was registered at Open Science Framework (OSF) at: https://osf.io/qu8nb/?view_only=82f06ecad77f4e54b02e8581a65047d7.     

Physical activity guidelines and guides for Canadians: facts and future

This article summarizes the main findings from the papers included in this journal supplement. It consolidates the evidence currently available to inform and advance the development of physical activity guidelines for Canadians, and it highlights the specific needs of various population subgroups. The challenges of translating guideline information into effective and persuasive physical activity messages, of campaigns to disseminate messages, and of related evaluations are underlined. Recommendations on how to proceed are based on the evidence base provided by this series of papers; the immediate next steps mandated by this initiative are outlined and priorities for future research are indicated.     

Visual elements in direct-to-consumer advertising: Messages communicated to patients with arthritis

ABSTRACT

Direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising saturates popular health magazines, communicating persuasive messages to readers that may influence attitudes and behaviors. This research used a two-prong approach to investigate the visual elements used in DTC advertising and their influence on consumers’ understanding of a disease and its treatment options. An analysis was conducted of DTC advertisements (N?=?62) from a population sample of Arthritis Today magazine, 2000–2010. Three panels of people with arthritis were used to validate the findings and discuss implications for health literacy. Pharmaceutical companies have an opportunity to communicate tailored messages to readers of niche publications and improve disease management.     

Making Vaccine Messaging Stick: Perceived Causal Instability as a Barrier to Effective Vaccine Messaging

Health officials often face challenges in communicating the risks associated with not vaccinating, where persuasive messages can fail to elicit desired responses. However, the mechanisms behind these failures have not been fully ascertained. To address this gap, an experiment (N = 163) tested the differences between loss-framed messages—one emphasizing the consequence of not receiving a flu vaccine; the other emphasizing the consequence of receiving the flu vaccine. Despite an identical consequence (i.e., Guillain–Barre syndrome), the message highlighting the consequence of not receiving the flu vaccine produced lower negative affect scores as compared to the message highlighting the consequence of receiving the flu vaccine. Mediation analyses suggest that one reason for this difference is due to non-vaccination being perceived as temporary and reversible, whereas vaccination is perceived as being permanent. Implications on health communication and future research are discussed.