1. Fear Appeals in Anti-Knife Carrying Campaigns: Successful or Counter-Productive?
- Author
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Hobson, Zoë, Yesberg, Julia A., and Bradford, Ben
- Subjects
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COUNTERTERRORISM , *KNIVES , *RISK-taking behavior , *CULTURE , *MASS media , *SELF-perception , *FEAR , *PUBLIC health , *VIOLENCE , *CRONBACH'S alpha , *T-test (Statistics) , *QUESTIONNAIRES , *SCALE analysis (Psychology) , *FACTOR analysis , *RESEARCH funding , *INTENTION - Abstract
In the UK, knife crime continues to be a persistent and worrying concern. Media campaigns are often used by police and anti-knife crime organisations in an attempt to discourage young people from picking up a weapon. Many focus on the potentially devastating consequences associated with carrying a weapon, with the aim of provoking fear and thus a deterrent effect. In this paper, we present the findings from two experimental studies exploring the effects of exposure to fear-based knife crime media campaigns on young people's intentions to engage in knife-carrying behaviour. Utilising a terror management theory perspective, in both studies we found that exposure to knife-related campaign imagery increased mortality salience, but there was no effect of campaign condition on willingness to carry a knife or on perceived benefits of knife-carrying. Although knife-related self-esteem/cultural worldviews predicted attitudes towards knife-carrying, such views did not moderate the effect of exposure to knife-related campaign imagery, and there was no effect of priming participants' to consider the value of behaving responsibly. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2022
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