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. They also found that efficacy responses were included in 56% of the stories, but of these, only 23% made statements speaking to the effectiveness of such actions. In place of focusing solely on the persuasive effects of fear, theorizing since the 1990s has shifted to understanding the role of other emotionswhether evoked by messages designed to produce fear or designed to simply be emotionalon persuasive outcomes. 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). sharing sensitive information, make sure youre on a federal Psychology Today 2023 Sussex Publishers, LLC. Fear appeals have three major components: the message, the audience, and the recommended behavior. 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. Tidsskr Nor Laegeforen. 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. 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). 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. Which can you control and which can you not? As health professionals develop health communication for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), we implore that these communication approaches do not include fear appeals. Their results indicated that most stories (86%) referenced threat and of these, 94% did so in the first third of the story. 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. Hovland, Janis, and Kelly noted that habituated behaviors can be adaptive in that they target the threat itself and aim to reduce or eliminate it. Yet, little attention has been paid to this issue. Loners come in many varieties, some of them perectly healthy. It's frequently used in public health campaigns such as anti-smoking, anti-drunk driving, and hypertension awareness campaigns. With initial exposure to a fear appeal, recipients engage in a threat appraisal. In addition to fear appeals that purposefully aim to scare audiences to motivate attitude and behavior change, recent work suggests that fear can be generated by other forms of messages (e.g., news accounts, social media posts, interpersonal conversations) that may influence receivers approaches to health issues. Give an example or create your own public health message using the fear appeal. 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. The discussion establishes that fear appeal-based public health messages (i.e. (2015, October 22). Horror movies use sound to frighten audiences. However, this assumes news stories are processed as fear appeals, which is as yet an open question. We encourage public health professionals to reevaluate their desire to use fear appeals in COVID-19 health communication and recommend that evidence-based health communication be utilized to address the needs of a specific community, help people understand what they are being asked to do, explain step-by-step how to complete preventative . Our thoughts and feelings aren't the problem. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Most directly relevant, Goodall, Sabo, Cline, and Egbert (2012) conducted a content analysis of print and electronic news coverage of the H1N1 virus from a fear appeal perspective, looking for the appearance of threat and efficacy information within the news coverage. 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. 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. For example, the core relational theme of fear is imminent threat. A researcher searching for literature on fear, fear appeals, or the role of fear in message outcomes will likely find an astounding number books, journal articles, encyclopedia entries, and even essays to examine. It holds that a fear appeal argument initiates a cognitive assessment process that considers the severity of the threatened event, the probability of the occurrence of the event, and the efficacy of a recommended behavior response. 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. 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. Fear, in turn, motivates protective behavior and a strong desire to escape the threat. PLoS One. 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. 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. As such, each theory or model does not always present a direct response to its immediate predecessor. Multiple book chapters also provide nice overviews of the existing research on the emotion of fear. 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. In essence, different types of audiences with different predispositions are likely to respond differently to fear appeals. Conclusion: Fear Appeals and Message Effects. Fear alone does not change behavior. If fear is used to motivate attitudinal and behavioral change, it should be used judiciously. 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. Jakovljevic M, Jakovljevic I, Bjedov S, Mustac F. Psychiatr Danub. It's the meaning we attach to them and the way we act on behalf of them. One emotion that often affects attitudes and behavior is fear. However, some evidence suggests a more nuanced picture. 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. Register for the early bird rate. 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). 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. There is growing evidence in multiple media contexts, including health messages (e.g., Dunlop, Wakefield, & Kashima, 2010) that the emotionality of media messages, regardless of valence, is associated with their diffusing through social networks. 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. More than 92 million benzodiazepine prescriptions are yearly dispensed in the US, yet little is known about the experiences of those taking them. For example. Additionally, social media provide opportunities not only for social sharing but also for information requests from others, which in turn could improve health outcomes. The COVID-19 Pandemic: Making Sense of Rumor and Fear. Copy this link, or click below to email it to a friend. Dolores Albarracin can be contacted by email or by phone at (217) 224-7019. We may learn that certain behaviors we engage in are potentially harmful and have now become fearful; yet, we still engage in the harmful behaviors (Tannenbaum et al., 2015). 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. There are very few circumstances under which they are not effective and there are no identifiable circumstances under which they backfire and lead to undesirable outcomes, said Dolores Albarracin, PhD, professor of psychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and an author of the study, published in the journal Psychological Bulletin. Fear appeals obviously aren't limited to comets. Some individuals, known as monitors, tend to experience more anxiety and prefer more, rather than less, information about health threats; whereas blunters instead avoid information related to threats. To help settle the debate, Albarracin and her colleagues conducted what they believe to be the most comprehensive meta-analysis to date. As the drive model lost favor, researchers began exploring alternative explanations for why stronger fear appeal messages could lead to greater adaptive responses, while still accounting for the evidence that sometimes, fear appeals lead to maladaptive responses. Further, additional perspectives, like the cognitive functional model, ask how messages that evoke emotions other than fear might influence persuasive outcome, with growing attention to the role of specific emotions, such as guilt, anger, and hope. Describe the "fear appeal" and how it's used in public health messaging. They looked at 127 research articles representing 248 independent samples and over 27,000 individuals from experiments conducted between 1962 and 2014. As with previous models, though EPPM offers an appealing explanation for when fear appeals may be more or less persuasive, research has not supported all of the EPPMs key predictions. Fear, information and control during a pandemic. It further asserts that the ordering or shifts in emotional states in response to changing message content may be critical to understanding persuasive outcomes. Further, many of the 12 propositions originally articulated within the EPPM have not been consistently tested. Multiple studies have supported the predictive power of the emotions-as-frames perspective, demonstrating not only that different emotion frames lead to different ways of viewing problems and preferred solutions but also that emotion is an important mediator of that process (e.g., Khne & Schemer, 2015). With strong evolutionary roots, fear serves important functions, including alerting people to present threats and motivating action to avoid future threats. As such, the emotional flow perspective suggests that the emotional shift from fear to hope may help to explain the conditions under which fear appeals are more likely to be effective. 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. 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). 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. PMC 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. 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. Advancing psychology to benefit society and improve lives. Unable to load your collection due to an error, Unable to load your delegates due to an error. Fear appeals are a form of persuasive communication. Though conceptually appealing, the PPM did not specify when individuals were more likely to rely on fear-control or danger-control processes. 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. How 'fear appeals' and disinformation may be manipulating the public on COVID Communication by public health officials during a pandemic may involve an organized strategy that includes some. This site needs JavaScript to work properly. Communication, collaboration and cooperation can stop the 2019 coronavirus. (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. However, this approach offers a limited understanding of the experience of fear throughout message exposure. We will refer to this as depicted fear to The other two perceptions related to the target behavior: the effectiveness of the target behavior for avoiding the threat (response efficacy) and the ability of the individual to enact the target behavior (self-efficacy). The authors found that though fear was the least common of the emotional responses found, tweets that did exhibit fear were significantly more likely than those that did not to contain a link to outside information and to contain requests for information, as well as interactive health information sharing between users. Combining aspects of cognitive-response theories of persuasion with the appraisal-based perspectives on emotion, the CFM focuses on the role of three concepts: motivated attention, motivated processing, and message expectations. 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. Tannenbaum et al. 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. Once evoked, fear manifests itself physically in multiple ways, including changes in facial expressions (e.g., wide-open eyes and raised eyelids) and the body (e.g., increased heart rate) (hman, 2008). In an early test of this model, Janis and Feshbach (1953) examined the connection between fear arousal and the persuasiveness of dental-hygiene messages. 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. 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. Although it is applied more in the context of news than persuasion, the EFM has the potential to assist in understanding how fear-based messages might generate persuasive influence by emphasizing how emotion-relevant information is more likely to be attended to later in the message and how post-message behaviors are likely to be consistent with emotional motivations. The American Psychological Association, in Washington, D.C., is the largest scientific and professional organization representing psychology in the United States. We are in the "closing arguments phase" of the local election campaign, deputy political editor Sam Coates says. They found positive relationships with severity (r = .44), susceptibility (r = .30), response efficacy (r = .36), and self-efficacy (r = .36). Shoba Sreenivasan, Ph.D., and Linda E. Weinberger, Ph.D., are psychology professors at the Keck School of Medicine at USC. 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. Two years later, in their meta-analysis of 98 studies, Witte and Allen (2000) likewise found a moderately positive relationship between fear appeals and experienced fear (r = .30). One trait variable that has been studied for its contribution to fear arousal is trait anxiety, or the dispositional tendency toward experiencing anxiety and worry across situations. As the field of psychology shifted to emphasize cognition over motivation through the 1960s into the 1970s, the study of fear appeals followed suit, with the theories developed during this timeframe highlighting the cognitions associated with the experience of fear, as well as the link between those cognitions and attitude change. As such, it is evident that fear is used to persuade even very young audiences. However, the conditions under which the emotion of fear and the cognitive perceptions related to threat and efficacy information produce productive persuasive effect remain unclear. HHS Vulnerability Disclosure, Help Effects of general and corona-specific stressors on mental burden during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in Germany. Appealing to fear: A Meta-Analysis of fear appeal effectiveness and theories. 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). 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. Among the "Big Five" personality traits, conscientiousness isespecially predictive of living a longer life. Under this model, any behavior that effectively alleviates fear will then become automatically associated with relief from the aversive state, and that behavior will become a habitual response to threatening stimuli. The information bombardment on social media is loaded with them. 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. It is very important not to lose sight of this, she said. 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. Indeed, though meta-analyses support a linear relationship between fear arousal and persuasive outcomes, recent methodologies suggest that shifts in experienced fear across a fear appeal, an inverted-U pattern of fear responses specifically, may also be a valid predictor of the persuasiveness of a fear appeal (Meczkowski, Dillard, & Shen, 2016). Using a within-subjects design and asking participants about their fear responses before, during, and after viewing a message about colorectal cancer screening using, Dillard et al. That is, though significant relationships between fear and persuasion have been identified, meta-analyses have found mixed support for the threat by efficacy interactions predicted by the EPPM (de Hoog, Stroebe, & de Wit, 2007; Witte & Allen, 2000). The use of fear in public health campaigns has been controversial for decades. Men have long been silent and stoic about their inner lives, but theres every reason for them to open up emotionallyand their partners are helping. 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. Fear appeals are often used in public health service announcements and health behavior change campaigns. Would you like email updates of new search results? The PubMed wordmark and PubMed logo are registered trademarks of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Finally, given the expectation that emotional experience directs information processing and information accessibility, the EFM predicts that decision-making and action will be heavily influenced by these emotion-driven processes. The following study examines social facilitation of eating cues in anti-obesity fear appeals to determine . APA 2023 registration is now open! 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. Example: thetruth.com. Fifteen years later, Tannenbaum, Hepler, Zimmerman, Saul, Jacobs, Wilson et al. 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? 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. These topics have generated great interest from scholars in multiple fields, ranging from communication and media studies to psychology, sociology, behavioral economics, and beyond. The protection motivation theory is an attitude-based model. 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. messages are often used in political, public health, and advertising campaigns in the hopes of reducing risky attitudes, intentions, or behaviors, their use is often a polarizing issue. How to Stop Your Mind When It Spins Out of Control. Before These appeals are effective at changing attitudes, intentions and behaviors. Censorship and Suppression of Covid-19 Heterodoxy: Tactics and Counter-Tactics. Discover the world's . Further, there is evidence that campaigns targeting adolescents risky health behaviors are at high risk for failure due to the likelihood of reactance, or resistance to having behavioral choices controlled by others. Presenting a fear appeal more than doubles the probability of change relative to not presenting anything or presenting a low-fear appeal, said Albarracin. Fear appeals, also known as scare tactics, have been widely used to promote recommended preventive behaviors. All close relationships can elicit strong positive and negative emotions the parties have of one another. That is, the message might not only be rejected by the audience, but the behavior that the message intended to change could become further entrenched. Fear appeals are more effective for women because women tend to be more prevention-focused than men. The study of fear-based messages has a long and robust history. 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). 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. Printed from Oxford Research Encyclopedias, Communication. Broadly, the EPPM posits that message-relevant fear arises in response to threat appraisals. Further, at a more general level, fear-based messages that alert children to the importance of making self-protective decisions while they are still developing their schemas for health-related behaviors, such as regular teeth brushing or healthy eating, may result in the creation of sustainable habits that eventually result in improved health across the lifespan.

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