how is fear appeal used in public health messaging

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. International Journal of Psychology, 49, 6370. Albarracin also recommended against using only fear-based appeals. Fear appeals have three major components: the message, the audience, and the recommended behavior. The use of fear in public health campaigns has been controversial for decades. Throughout the history of the study of fear appeals, any message that evoked negative emotion would often be categorized as a fear appeal. Careers. crisis communication; emergency; global health; health communications; risk. Would you like email updates of new search results? Yet, there is a growing body of literature on the social sharing of emotions that indicates that people have an instinctive need to disclose to others when they experience emotionally charged events, which has been widely documented across cultures, gender, and age groups (Rim, 2009). 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. Health persuasion through emoji: How emoji interacted with information source to predict health behaviors in COVID-19 situation. These behaviors can also, however, be maladaptive if they do not result in behavioral change but instead involve avoiding the topic or becoming defensive toward the message source. Marco Yzer, Brian Southwell, and Michael Stephenson discuss the use of fear in public communication campaigns in their chapter in the fourth edition of Public Communication Campaigns. Whereas some . In addition, understanding how fear-based messages fit within the general context of other emotion-based messagesor how fear works with other emotions within the same messageis somewhat uncharted territory. (2015, October 22). government site. However, some evidence suggests a more nuanced picture. 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. A fear appeal is a persuasive message that attempts to arouse fear in order to divert behavior through the threat of impending danger or harm. If a person focuses on managing the threat they perceive in the environment, Leventhal argues that danger-control processes are engaged to manage the threat. 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. Fear appeals have three major components: the message, the audience, and the recommended behavior. The EPPM represented a merger of the PPM and the PMT, but it also recognized the importance of the emotion of fear itself in understanding message effects. Print 2020 Jun 30. He says there are three ways to look at the local elections. Yet, little attention has been paid to this issue. American Psychological Association. 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. a mask. This may be because, unlike with public service announcements, audiences do not expect news stories to highlight a significant problem and then offer a clear and effective solution. Describe the "fear appeal" and how it's used in public health messaging eCollection 2022. Schweinhart A, Arambur C, Bauer R, Simons-Rudolph A, Atwood K, Luseno WK. A fear appeal, in health promotion, is when health promoters, trying to inspire change in behavior from high risk to lowered risk, place emphasis of a health message on the use of gruesome fear content or try to arouse fear responses in the audience (Witte, 1992). 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). This site needs JavaScript to work properly. Fear, information and control during a pandemic. 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. As this study suggests, more nuanced methodological approaches are needed to better understand how individuals experience fear appeals over the course of message exposure. Moreover, they may perceive themselves to be less able to avoid the harms associated with risky health behaviors (Cohn, Macfarlane, Yanez, & Imai, 1995). Get the help you need from a therapist near youa FREE service from Psychology Today. In order to fully support or reject tenets the original EPPM, additional research is needed. In light of the limitations of previous theorizing, and coinciding with an increased interest in affect and emotion in the psychology literature (Lazarus, 1991), Witte (1992) proposed the extended parallel process model (EPPM). For example, fear appeals begin with threat information followed by efficacy information. Mongeaus (1998) meta-analysis examined the influence of fear appeals on perceived fear, attitudes, and behaviors. Since the 1950s, social scientists have studied the potential effects of fear-arousing messages on audiences. Epub 2020 Jun 26. Fear-based appeals effective at changing attitudes, behaviors after all Jakovljevic M, Jakovljevic I, Bjedov S, Mustac F. Psychiatr Danub. 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. 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. You will explore the application of fear appeals in health promotion messaging through the examination of a health promotion public service announcement or ad campaign. Before The link was not copied. Appealing to fear: A Meta-Analysis of fear appeal effectiveness and theories. Indeed, in a systematic review of the EPPM literature, Popova (2012) found that two of Wittes (1992) propositions, (a) when perceived efficacy is at a moderate level, perceived threat will have an inverted-U-shaped effect on message acceptance, and (b) when perceived efficacy is at a high level, there is a reciprocal relationship between perceived threat and fear, have yet to be empirically tested. Longitudinal work on fear appeal exposure and responses, as well as research on the influence of more prevalent use of fear appeals versus other message strategies, could help confirm or dismiss these possibilities. and transmitted securely. They looked at 127 research articles representing 248 independent samples and over 27,000 individuals from experiments conducted between 1962 and 2014. Scaring People to Improve Health Works, But Can Have Downsides : Shots As such, fear is an emotion that frequently attracts the attention of scholars and message designers who hope to persuade audiences to change their behavior in light of potential threats to well-being and public safety. Fear-appeal research has focused almost exclusively on mediated messages. We will refer to this as depicted fear to Copy this link, or click below to email it to a friend. However, if efficacy appraisals are strong enough to dominate threat appraisals, the EPPM predicts that individuals will feel capable of addressing the threat and will then enact adaptive, danger-control behaviors. 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. At a methodological level, many studies of fear appeals fail to measure the emotion of fear itself as an outcome, instead analyzing only threat and efficacy cognitions. Book chapters that discuss fears role in communication and media processes and effects also provide helpful overviews of the state of the literature as well as suggestions for future research directions. Fear is a negatively valenced discrete emotional state that is an inherent part of the human experience. However, fear appeals should not be seen as a panacea because the effect is still small. A fear appeal is a persuasive message that attempts to arouse fear in order to divert behavior through the threat of impending danger or harm. However, if a person focuses on controlling the emotion of fear, fear control processes are engaged, which ultimately result in maladaptive outcomes, such as avoidance, denial, and reactance. Given that persuasion research during this era was heavily influenced by motivational perspectives, it is not surprising that fear was conceptualized as an unpleasant, drive-like state, one that audiences were motivated to reduce. Are You Sore, Stiff, and Unrested When You Wake Up? Goldenbeld, C., Twisk, D., & Houwing, S. (2008). However, far more research is needed to confirm this finding and to explore other ways in which monitoring and blunting, and indeed other individual differences, suggest implications for fear-based messaging. Maslows so-called "hierarchy of needs"is often presented as a five-level pyramid where the bottom four levels are "deficiency needs.". Effects are most apparent in women and for one-time behaviors, says study. There has been so much written about fear and the role of fear in risk-related messages that one can get easily overwhelmed with the voluminous responses to search queries for the terms. 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. It also provides a nice overview of the fear appeal theories that came before it (i.e., the drive model, the parallel process model, and protection motivation theory). Results indicated no main effects for fear or hope or response efficacy, but a significant interaction suggested that emotionally consistent presentations (fear and low efficacy, hope and high efficacy) boosted intentions to engage in protective actions relative to emotionally inconsistent, sensationalized presentations (fear and high efficacy, hope and low efficacy). fear appeal has been used when the message producer intended to inform the public about the severe consequences that unhealthy behavior or a disease may induce, thus expressing a causal . Empirical research, however, did not readily support the predicted curvilinear relationship between fear arousal and influence. It is to this literature we now turn. Further, many of the 12 propositions originally articulated within the EPPM have not been consistently tested. They found positive relationships with severity (r = .44), susceptibility (r = .30), response efficacy (r = .36), and self-efficacy (r = .36). Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Communication, College of Communications, Pennsylvania State University, Department of Communication, University of California, Santa Barbara, Gender (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Studies), Fear As Mental State Versus Message Component, Theories of Fears Influence on Risk Perceptions, Attitudes, and Behavior, Fear Messages and Patient-Provider Communication, Conclusion: Fear Appeals and Message Effects, https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228613.013.266, Fear responses to threat appeals: Functional form, methodological considerations, and correspondence between static and dynamic data, Protection motivation and self-efficacy: A revised theory of fear appeals and attitude change, Brave men and timid women? Med Anthropol. Fear appeals motivate attitude, intention, and behaviour changesespecially fear appeals accompanied by high-efficacy messages. Once a moderate amount of fear is conveyed, there is no further benefit in adding more fear. MeSH Fear appeals to promote better health behaviors: an investigation of Despite accumulating evidence that fear appeals could be persuasive, the field remained without a good explanation for the mechanisms of these message effects. Generally, the findings reveal that fear appeals do work; however, more specific results were also discovered (Tannenbaum et al, 2015). doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0275854. This paper provides an insight into the use of fear appeals to communicate a public health message. Our thoughts and feelings aren't the problem. Although these meta-analyses seem to converge on a small but significant relationship between fear and persuasion-related outcomes, the mechanisms of fear appeal effects are still not entirely clear. Give an example or create your own public health message using the fear appeal. 2020 Summer;32(2):221-228. doi: 10.24869/psyd.2020.221. More specifically, the EPPM argues that if a message contains information on threat severity and susceptibility, fear will be aroused. Although little attention has been given to how specific personality traits impact reactions to fear appeals, there are good reasons to believe that they matter and should be looked at more carefully in the future. However, these gender differences are likely moderated by gender-role socialization processes such that expressions of fear are typically looked down on for men but not women, resulting in a cycle whereby fearful reactions by women are both tolerated and expected by other members of society (McLean & Anderson, 2009). Solved Fear appeals are often used in public health | Chegg.com 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.

Used Backhoe Attachment For John Deere 1025r, Mutants And Masterminds 3e Pdf Trove, New Businesses Coming To Lathrop, Ca, Disadvantages Of Interdisciplinary Approach In Healthcare, Kate Greer Peter Fenton Wedding, Articles H