This is a critical because if audiences stop paying attention to a fear appeal after the presentation of the threat, they may miss out on the efficacy information that is critical to a fear-based messages success. government site. However, trait anxiety has been linked to other outcomes of fear appeals. | PostedSeptember 18, 2018 Horror movies use sound to frighten audiences. "These appeals are effective at changing attitudes, intentions and behaviors. To aid health professionals in redirecting away from the use of fear appeals, we offer a phased approach to creating health communication messages during the COVID-19 crisis. As such, careful attention to both the contexts in which fear appeals are most appropriate for adolescent audiences and how such messages are structured is warranted. This research suggests that exposure to health news storiesfear-generating ones in particularcan influence audience health behaviors, but that the traditional fear appeal structure does not always translate to the news context. It presents a risk, presents the vulnerability to the risk, and then may, or may not suggest a form of protective action. With strong evolutionary roots, fear serves important functions, including alerting people to present threats and motivating action to avoid future threats. For example, if the message is so extreme, instead of being influenced by it, the audience could ignore the information altogether. (2015) calculated an average weighted effect size comparing groups exposed to moderate fear versus those exposed to high depicted fear. Thus anxiety is typically a more diffuse emotional experience with a less clearly defined action tendency or behavioral target than fear. He says there are three ways to look at the local elections. Epub 2020 Jun 26. Shoba Sreenivasan, Ph.D., and Linda E. Weinberger, Ph.D., are psychology professors at the Keck School of Medicine at USC. Although these meta-analyses focus on different variables used across different fear-appeal theories, together they provide helpful evidence for any theory that utilizes the variables each meta-analysis addressed. Effects of general and corona-specific stressors on mental burden during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in Germany. Multiple book chapters also provide nice overviews of the existing research on the emotion of fear. This Perspective discusses the use of fear appeals in promoting health behaviour. 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. 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. She noted that the studies analyzed did not necessarily compare people who were afraid to people who were unafraid, but instead compared groups that were exposed to more or less fear-inducing content. Bookshelf Fear appeal is a typical marketing strategy that aims to affect behavior by inducing anxiety in individuals who are exposed to a frightening message. A balance between the two perspectives was struck in the 1990s with the introduction of the extended parallel process model (Witte, 1992) in which the evocation of fear from cognitive appraisals of message content was conceptualized as motivating consideration of both response and self-efficacy, the combination of which was predicted to influence attitudinal and behavioral response. Albarracin also recommended against using only fear-based appeals. The message is conveyed clearly that if students want to achieve their goals (e.g., getting a good job; gaining entry into college, or graduate/medical/law school), they cannot risk poor or sometimes even average grades. Are You Sore, Stiff, and Unrested When You Wake Up? Fear appeal is a term used in psychology, sociology and marketing. Empirical research, however, did not readily support the predicted curvilinear relationship between fear arousal and influence. Empirical work is needed, however, to test if and how differences between fear and anxiety manifest themselves across multiple persuasion contexts. SSM Popul Health. Participants read news stories designed to evoke either fear or hope about the human papilloma virus (HPV) and with different levels of response efficacy information regarding the impending HPV vaccine. sharing sensitive information, make sure youre on a federal Most notably, Leventhal (1970, 1971) argued that fear appeals evoked two separate but simultaneous processes: an emotional fear control reaction and a primarily cognitive danger-control reaction. It is to this literature we now turn. Jakovljevic M, Jakovljevic I, Bjedov S, Mustac F. Psychiatr Danub. Clearly, fear appeals do not only provoke fear reactions. One Personality Trait Predicts Longevity More Than OthersBut Why? (2015) also found that studies with messages that included efficacy statements had larger effects (d = .43) than did those that did not include efficacy statements (d = .21), with the outcome being an average weighted effect size encompassing attitudes, intentions, and behaviors. As such, it is evident that fear is used to persuade even very young audiences. These include distrust in public health authorities, skepticism of health messaging, a lack of uptake in recommended behaviors, and a plethora of other unintended consequences. 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. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0275854. Thus, highlighting both actual risk of health-threatening behavior, especially occasional ones, to enhance perceived severity, as well as boosting self-efficacy to protect oneself from harm, may be particularly important message goals to match the psychological profile of adolescents. However, more recent theorizing has returned to a focus on the influence that the emotion of fear itself has on attitude and behavior change. It generally describes a strategy for motivating people to take a particular action. As health professionals develop health communication for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), we implore that these communication approaches do not include fear appeals. Fifteen years later, Tannenbaum, Hepler, Zimmerman, Saul, Jacobs, Wilson et al. The third component recommended behavior is important because it gives instruction on what to do to avert or reduce the risk of harm. For example, we may learn that taking too much over-the-counter pain medication can cause liver damage; nevertheless, we continue to take more than we should when the pain is great. Given that many health-oriented fear appeals have been shown to evoke multiple emotions, including anger, disgust, and sadness, current theorizing has taken a mixed-emotions or emotional flow perspective to provide a deeper understanding of fear appeal effects. Before One emotion that often affects attitudes and behavior is fear. Cognitively, fear is associated with uncertainty over the likely outcome and ones ability to cope with the current threat, which contributes to the motivation for avoidance and protection (Lazarus, 1991). Still, the CFM introduces the notion that the emotion of fear influences how carefully persuasive messages are processed, which in turn has implications for the direction and endurance of persuasive effect. This journal article, as well as other journal articles, can be found in scholarly databases available via most university libraries. 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. Insincere behavior may be saying or doing what an individual believes others want to hear or to gain favor to reap future rewards. Though the four cognitions identified in the PMT proved important to persuasive outcomes in response to fear appeals, the specific relationships among them as asserted by the theory were not fully supported by empirical evidence. As this study suggests, more nuanced methodological approaches are needed to better understand how individuals experience fear appeals over the course of message exposure. The use of fear to motivate behavior change is well-documented across the lifespan. We contend that unintended negative outcomes can result from fear appeals that intensify the already complex pandemic and efforts to contain it. Please enable it to take advantage of the complete set of features! Substance cues are used in these types of prevention messages in order to gain and keep attention (Clayton et al., 2017a) and potentially inhibit message rejection when a fear appeal is present (Bailey et al., 2018; Sarge and Gong, 2019). explains the conditions under which fear appeals are likely to succeed. For example, Nabi (1999) proposed the cognitive-functional model (CFM) to advance the literature on negative emotional appeals generally, including specific predictions regarding the role of fear in mediated persuasion. Yet, little attention has been paid to this issue. If fear appeal messages are defined or identified based primarily on their ability to elicit fear, message design elements and message response become conflated, which interferes with gaining insight into the message components responsible for generating the desired fear response (OKeefe, 2003). However, the prediction that fear, but not anger, would be associated with less careful information processing when expectation of reassurance was high was not supported. These topics have generated great interest from scholars in multiple fields, ranging from communication and media studies to psychology, sociology, behavioral economics, and beyond. Thus, it may be that blunters may respond better to shorter, more direct fear appeals whereas monitors may be more willing to engage with longer or more detailed fear-inducing messages. Despite the wealth of research on the effects of fear-based messages, numerous limitations have been pointed out in the existing literature. Fear appeals are persuasive messages that emphasize the potential danger and harm that will befall individuals if they do not adopt the messages recommendations. 2022 Nov 22;10:991292. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2022.991292. Since the 1950s, researchers have addressed strategic fear appeal effects, continually refining answers to the questions of when, why, and for whom they are persuasive. Despite multiple theoretical perspectives advanced in the literature, no single model decisively captures the conditions of fear appeal effectiveness. In such situations, they might also criticize the nature of the message and then use self-justification for not modifying their attitudes and behavior; especially, if they discuss the fear appeals with others (Goldenbeld, Twisk, & Houwing, 2007). Psychological Bulletin, 141, 11781204. 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. They found fear appeals to be effective, especially when they contained recommendations for one-time only (versus repeated) behaviors and if the targeted audience included a larger percentage of women. Fear, in turn, motivates protective behavior and a strong desire to escape the threat. More elaborate strategies, such as training people on the skills they will need to succeed in changing behavior, will likely be more effective in most contexts. Based on the literature and existing theory spanning from children to the elderly, we suggest that though fear-based messages may be useful to address health issues across the lifespan, there are unique challenges to consider for each age group. The results replicated previous meta-analyses, demonstrating a significant positive relationship between fear appeal manipulations and attitudes, intentions, and behaviors (average weighted d = .29). Recent research, however, is beginning to more carefully consider how the emotions associated with health messages promote information-sharing behaviors. Visit one of the web links below and review the health promotion message. It was d = .05 with a 95% confidence interval that crossed 0 [.34, 0.24], suggesting that neither the linear nor curvilinear hypotheses were fully supported by the body of existing fear appeal research. Preparing for your first therapy session beforehand can help manage anxiety. Med Anthropol. Thus, it may be that fear appeals that emphasize efficacy over threat may be more successful for this demographic, though future research is needed to address this question directly. Register for the early bird rate. 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. Thus, the influence of the emotional arousal versus its related cognitions is often blurred. The protection motivation theory is an attitude-based model. Fear appeals that recommend one-time behaviors are more effective than appeals that recommend repeated behaviors. Simply frightening people without giving them an effective way to avoid or deal with the situation is not a very influential means for behavioral motivation. The site is secure. However, this approach offers a limited understanding of the experience of fear throughout message exposure. Additionally, audiences will be motivated to attend to message information that is consistent with the goals of the aroused emotion (e.g., protection, in the case of fear). However, if the curvilinear hypothesis suggested by the drive model were the best model of fear appeal effects, this value would be negative and significant. Undoubtedly, most of us have been exposed to fear appeal campaigns regarding health issues, politics, and traffic and driving safety. For example, fear appeals begin with threat information followed by efficacy information. Understanding the personalities of the audience (e.g., the typical characteristics and traits of women in comparison to men, or of adolescents versus young or middle-aged people, or of those who are health conscious versus those who are not) will help in designing a campaign that is better directed toward the targeted individuals. A second more general approach to considering the influence of discrete emotions, including fear, on persuasive outcome is the emotions-as-frames perspective, which argues that an audience members emotional state provides a lens through which individuals pay attention to and process message information (Nabi, 2003). In this article, we discuss the use of fear appeals during the COVID-19 pandemic and the potential negative sociobehavioral outcomes fear-based messaging may have. Indeed, the Tannenbaum et al. For example, in a study of fear appeals about condom use and AIDS prevention, Witte and Morrison (2000) found that whereas trait anxiety was not related to threat perceptions, efficacy perceptions, or behavior, participants low in trait anxiety reported greater defensive avoidance than did those high in trait anxiety. 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. Fear-arousal appeals might be effective for a person with little or no schooling. Through its divisions in 54 subfields of psychology and affiliations with 60 state, territorial and Canadian provincial associations, APA works to advance the creation, communication and application of psychological knowledge to benefit society and improve people's lives. PLoS One. WASHINGTON Fear-based appeals appear to be effective at influencing attitudes and behaviors, especially among women, according to a comprehensive review of over 50 years of research on the topic, published by the American Psychological Association. More from Shoba Sreenivasan, Ph.D., and Linda E. Weinberger, Ph.D. Major life events can have significant consequences, yet the gnawing of persistent minor irritations may be more prevalent and harmful. For the 71 studies in their sample that reported perceived fear, the meta-analysis revealed that treatment groups reported greater perceived fear than comparison groups, d = 1.00. Thus, despite the sustained attention that fear-based messages have received in the past, many questions still remain for future research to address. These emotions may also have an effect on behavioral changes. a fear appeal message is the amount of fear it is intended to arouse in message recipients. Printed from Oxford Research Encyclopedias, Communication. eCollection 2022. American Psychological Association. 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. There are many messages that convey important information about potential harm; however, if the message is to have any effect, it should address issues that instill critical amounts of fear and be targeted to those who are the most susceptible to the risk. Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour, 11, 207-220. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trf.2007.11.001, Ruiter, R. A., Kessels, L. T, E., Peters, G. Y., & Kok, G. (2014). The recently advanced emotional flow perspective (Nabi, 2015; Nabi & Green, 2015) builds on this recognition by arguing that messages, including fear appeals, evoke multiple emotions in sequence as the contents of the messages unfold. Fear appeals are also used in educational settings. Further, many of the 12 propositions originally articulated within the EPPM have not been consistently tested. A fear appeal, then, can be defined as a message that intends to evoke fear in audiences by demonstrating the existence of a threat and then detailing ways to avoid that threat (Witte, 1994). 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. Although little research speaks to this issue, Williams-Piehota, Pizarro, Schneider, Mowad, and Salovey (2005) found that participants classified as blunters responded with less negative affect to mammography messages that were simple and direct versus lengthy and detailed in their presentation of threat and efficacy information.
Fischer And Wieser Recipes,
Gordon Scott Cause Of Death,
Boise School District Staff Directory,
What Is A False Start In Track,
Rhea Ripley Long Hair,
Articles H