Search

Fear appeals are persuasive messages that scare consumers into compliance with the appeals' recommendation by highlighting a personally relevant threat. Several factors, including personality traits and message features, can influence the effectiveness of fear appeals. This article proposes an additional element that contributes to the persuasiveness of fear appeals: ethnic congruence between the fear appeal and the target audience. Specifically, this research examines the interplay of high fear arousal appeals and ad–target congruence on message persuasiveness. We operationalize congruence by ethnicity match (vs. mismatch). A series of three experiments and a follow‐up study reveal that while high fear arousal appeals are more persuasive than low‐arousal appeals in general, their effectiveness is accentuated when the target audience feels congruent with the elements of the appeal. We argue that when encountering fear appeals, consumers' perceived ethnic congruence with the elements of the advertisement (e.g., ad character–target ethnic similarity) affects whether they identify with the ad and thus influences their perceived vulnerability to the publicized threat. This, in turn, influences the level of the induced emotion (i.e., fear), which subsequently drives persuasiveness. We document this effect using both self‐reported and behavioral measures. We also rule out an alternative account based on appraisal‐tendency theory, which predicts that the uncertainty dimension characterizing the emotions—for example, fear (anger) is associated with high (low) uncertainty—explains the results. The findings highlight the importance of representing diverse characters in marketing and public policy campaigns relying on fear appeals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Not securing smart home devices has proven a threat to cyberspace. This has underscored the importance of using fear appeals to promote users' information security behavior. We practiced context-specific theorization to enhance fear appeal theory and design. Particularly, we extended Protection Motivation Theory to include avoidant-focused motivation (i.e., users' intent to avoid using their devices), the positive emotion of hope, and information technology (IT)-self extension. Our hypotheses include that fear engenders both protection and avoidant-focused motivations, hope mediates coping appraisal to engender (reduce) protection (avoidant-focused) motivation, and IT-self-extension acts as an antecedent. We conducted four studies, including two surveys and two experiments, and validated our extensions. Our main theoretical contributions include showing that hope is critical in determining which coping mechanism occurs and that it improves the theory's predictive power. In terms of practice, we demonstrate that a fear appeal message with a self-extension component and a strong coping component is more effective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Weak passwords are one of the most pervasive threats in cybersecurity. Facing this threat, users require guidance on how to protect themselves. A method frequently used by IS practitioners and researchers to provide this guidance is fear appeals, persuasive messages intended to prompt behavioral changes in response to a threat. However, previous research has not considered a key element of fear appeal effectiveness: task primacy. When fear appeals are a part of the primary or focal task, users' cognitive engagement will be high by default. However, when fear appeals are delivered as secondary tasks, such as interruptive security messages, users' engagement is likely to be low because the primary task takes priority in attentional and cognitive resources. In such cases, a remedy is needed to elicit engagement with the fear appeal. In this research note, we theorize that cognitive engagement acts as a contextual moderator that is critical to the effectiveness of fear appeals under the boundary condition of task primacy. Further, we theorize that interactivity, a mechanism that adapts message content through tailored real-time feedback in response to a user's actions, is a key remedy to enhance engagement with fear appeals. However, to date fear appeals have largely been tested in noninteractive primary tasks, and no study has provided a theoretical explanation for why interactivity enhances the power of a fear appeal. We empirically examined engagement as a contextual moderator in two ways. First, we conducted a field experiment, which manipulated messages on a password creation form on a real-world website. Second, we performed a qualitative focus group study to triangulate the experimental results and more fully reify our theoretical model. Together, the findings reveal that interactivity acts as a catalyst to engage participants with a fear appeal, which then allows the persuasive message of the fear appeal to be internalized. The concepts of boundary condition of task primacy and engagement suggest ways that fear appeals can be more effectively applied in research and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Identify how early COVID-19 public health messages incorporated in the tenets of the extended parallel process model (EPPM). Setting: YouTube videos developed by governmental departments, medical institutions, news organizations, and non-profit organizations in the United States were aggregated. Method: This qualitative study conducted a keyword search to identify public service announcements (PSAs). The sample was further refined after searching PSAs that contained fear appeals. A thematic analysis was performed by using the constant comparative method. Sample: A total of forty-three videos was included in the final analysis. Result: Two themes emerged regarding messages aimed at arousing the perceived severity of threat. These themes include emphasizing the consequences of being infected and utilizing personal narratives. Perceived susceptibility of threat was aroused by emphasizing that some groups have higher risks than others. Two themes emerged around arousing perceived response efficacy: (1) the authority of professionals; and (2) altruism and personal responsibility. One way was identified to arouse perceived self-efficacy, which is informing the protective measures. Conclusion: Multiple strategies were used in PSAs about COVID-19 to arouse fear during the early stages of the pandemic. The utilization of self-efficacy was oversimplified, by not providing details about the rationale for the recommended behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role of Public Service Announcements (PSAs) in capturing the public's attention to awareness messages is increasingly challenging due to the advancements in visual technology that have elevated audience preferences. In order to maximize attention and induce behavioral changes, the common use of fear as a visual rhetoric (RV) threat in various local campaigns, especially those involving health, has been employed. However, implementations of fear appeals lacking empirical foundations often fail to engage attention and instead motivate defensive audience responses. Fear-based RV failures are attributed to the lack of a persuasive fear model specifically tailored to negotiate with the audience's knowledge and experiences. These weaknesses are more noticeable among target audiences exhibiting specific tendencies, such as video game addiction in cases of Problematic Gaming (PG) in Malaysia. This raises questions about the suitability of fear-based RV approaches for attention-grabbing and their risk of rejection. Consequently, existing PSAs attraction strategies necessitate a more cognitively and affectively sensitive concept for the audience. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to discuss and propose the concept of Fear-Induced Visual Metaphors (FVM) as a new form of PSA RV. Choosing the best stimulus construct of MV from the typologies of Pictorial Metaphor Theory (TMB), Visual Rhetoric Theory (TRV), or Visual Structure Concept (KSV) proven effective in commercial advertising, combined with threat components from the Extended Parallel Process Model (EPPM) fear appeal model, aims to enhance the potential for attention-grabbing. Theoretically, FVM attract the audience's attention through significantly superior cognitive and affective allure compared to standard visual or rhetoric. Conclusions from this study are expected to contribute a testable and empirically validated conceptual framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID‐19 pandemic appears to be winding down. But has its psychological effect of the pandemic also faded? This next stage remains uncertain, which needs to be explored further. This article aims to understand changing consumer attitudes in post‐pandemic times. In this regard, the present study conducts a cross‐country analysis to examine and compare the COVID‐19 fear appeals of consumers in India and Spain (if they still exist) that may have an influence on the future use (FU) and recommendation of online food services (OFS). The study integrates the concept of fear appeal, the theory of planned behaviour and cultural values to observe differences between Indian and Spanish consumers, in influencing their intention to use OFS. The findings confirm the importance of hygiene risk, with very low or no significance of perceived COVID‐19 risk on OFS usage in both countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This longitudinal study examines how well the EPPM predicts and explains college students' voting behavior. One-hundred-and-seventy-eight undergraduate students filled out a survey at two points in time: (1) four weeks before and (2) one week after the 2022 midterm election. As hypothesized, the EPPM accurately predicted danger control outcomes (i.e., severity, susceptibility, self-efficacy, and response efficacy predicted voting intentions, and voting intentions predicted voting behavior). The EPPM also predicted one fear control outcome (though only the path between severity and fear was significant). More specifically, the EPPM explained 45.7% of the variance in intention, 81.7% of the variance in behavior, 77% of the variance in contesting, and 33.6% of the variance in suppression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Using fear to increase the uptake of preventative health behaviours is a longstanding practice, which could be useful in mitigating the spread of COVID-19. However, the impact of fear campaigns beyond behavioural outcomes has rarely been considered. It is possible that these threatening health messages could heighten health-related anxiety by inducing a tendency to interpret ambiguous stimuli in a threatening manner. This research aimed to evaluate the effects of fear-based articles about COVID-19, on intentions to adhere to mitigation measures and interpretation bias—a core maintenance factor in health anxiety. Method: Two pilot studies were conducted with the aim of validating our novel COVID-related measures and assessing engagement with the threat manipulation. Following this, 375 community members were recruited through social media for the main study. Participants were then randomly allocated to read an article about COVID which was manipulated on both threat and efficacy. After reading the article, participants then completed measures of interpretation bias and intentions to engage in COVID-19 mitigation measures. Results: Although the threatening articles consistently produced greater COVID-related threat, they only generated a stronger interpretation bias in the first pilot study. Importantly, threat-based communications failed to enhance intentions to perform mitigation measures in any of the studies. Likewise, reading an article which bolstered self-efficacy did not increase intentions, compared to reading a low efficacy article. Conclusion: This research suggests that fear appeals are unlikely to increase intentions to perform COVID-related mitigation measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although several theories could be applied to stimulate mobile health (mHealth) use and change people's health behaviors, theory-driven mHealth designs are scarce. Instead, developers and researchers often implement behavior change techniques and mix multiple techniques without explicitly considering their underlying theoretical mechanisms. We call this practice into question and propose that combining behavior change techniques doesnot necessarily result in synergistic effects. Drawing on theories of protection motivation and social upward comparison, we engage in explanatory design theorizing to understand interactions of behavior change techniques and their implications for mHealth design. We design, theorize about, and evaluate four mHealth prototypes for stress alleviation. In a five-week field experiment with n = 138 participants and a subsequent qualitative substantiation, we show that there is a negative interaction effect of protection motivation and social upward comparison, rendering their combined application less effective. Our findings elicit mutual boundary conditions for theories of protection motivation and social upward comparison. If mechanisms of one theory are present, they restrict the effectiveness of mechanisms of the other theory. Thus, mHealth developers need to use caution when combining different behavior change techniques within one mHealth artifact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information security (ISec) is a pervasive concern of individuals, organizations, and governments. To encourage individuals to engage in and learn about secure behaviors, ISec research has turned to fear appeals, which are short messages that communicate threats and efficacy to elicit protection motivation among recipients. ISec research has reported contradictory findings on what makes fear appeals effective in ISec contexts, and this lack of clarity is problematic, because it may lead to incorrect conclusions. For example, some studies have argued that the mixed findings arise from differences between personal and organizational contexts and that fear appeals do not work well among organizational users. However, this argument has not been empirically tested, and differences in message design provide an equally plausible explanation, which has also not been tested. To reconcile the mixed findings across these studies, we test the effects of context (i.e., personal users vs. organizational users) and degree of message abstractness (i.e., abstract vs. concrete) on fear-appeal outcomes. We draw from construal-level theory to conceptualize the differences between abstract and concrete fear appeals. Across three experiments, we find evidence that concrete fear appeals are more effective than abstract fear appeals for the purpose of stimulating fear-appeal outcomes. Furthermore, by comparing two identical experiments—one conducted with personal users and another conducted with organizational users—we find differences in participants' responses to fear appeals. However, contrary to our expectations, our findings suggest that organizational users report higher levels of fear and protection motivation than personal users. This finding is not a theoretical contradiction: the theoretical crux of an effective fear appeal is that it must be personally relevant to stimulate fear; correspondingly, we show that concrete fear appeals help stimulate fear and the desired protective response. Moreover, concrete fear appeals increase actual compliance behaviors, not just intentions. Thus, our findings suggest that the mixed findings in the literature may be a product of message abstractness and differences among audiences. This has pivotal implications for how to construct fear appeals in research and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

College students tend to underestimate the risk associated with e-cigarette use while overestimating the prevalence of this behavior. The purpose of this study was to compare the perceived effectiveness of social norms messages to other theoretical appeals regarding the prevention of e-cigarette use. Researchers surveyed 586 college students who assessed five messages. Different appeals were featured in each message. A Rasch Rating Scale Model (RSM) was used to calibrate students' responses to seven items assessing each communication message. The results from the multiple regression models revealed that vape-users were less receptive to the messages than abstainers, and among vape users, males expressed lower message endorsement than females. Overall, the clinical appeal received the highest endorsement in Rasch calibrated logit unit measures, (M = 3.36 for abstainers and M = 2.41 for vape-users), whereas the social norms message was the least favored (M = 1.41 for abstainers and M = 0.22 for vape-users). Qualitative analyses revealed common themes of skepticism and a need for credible scientific information. Findings suggest college students prefer clinical evidence over normative information. An experimental design is needed to determine the extent to which messages influence behavior change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During crises, journalists rely on emotional appeals to alert the public. This includes fear appeals, i.e., journalistic depictions of threats and measures against them. Focusing on the coronavirus crisis, this study analyzes the prevalence of fear appeals in journalistic news, differences between outlets, and changes over time. It employs a manual content analysis of UK online news between January and May 2020 (N = 1048). Results indicate that, during the early phases of the coronavirus pandemic, journalists relied heavily on fear-inducing messages by emphasizing threats related to COVID-19 and, though to a lesser degree, measures against these threats. Besides differences between tabloids and quality outlets, we find that fear-inducing content decreased before the UK itself became most affected, indicating that coverage served a warning function rather than mirroring national affectedness. Overall, the study illustrates that fear appeals are common in coverage of crises, where they enable journalists to take on the role of public mobilizers and facilitators of crises response strategies, for instance by governments.

Within climate change instruction, effective instructional crisis communication is necessary to attain cognitive, affective, and behavioral learning outcomes so students comprehensively learn the reality and implications of this planetary crisis. I locate this learning as coming to terms with climate change. This study explores how students affectively and cognitively learned to come to terms with the immense threat of the climate crisis outside their initial exposure to climate change fear appeals communicated in their classrooms. Drawing from interviews and focus groups with college students, I found students came to terms with climate change outside their classrooms by coping with the immense threat while enacting sensemaking with their peers. These findings suggest coping and sensemaking are crucial for students to come to terms with climate change after instructor-delivered fear appeals to access the efficacy needed to face this planetary threat. Ultimately, this study advances instructional crisis communication by providing insight into student to student out-of-classroom communication and how it affects cognitive and affective learning outcomes concerning climate change.

Vaccine hesitancy is a substantial barrier to increasing HPV vaccination rates among Latinx in the US who experience disproportional rates of HPV-related cancers. The current research tests the effectiveness of culturally-targeted, fear-appeal messages designed using the Extended Parallel Processing Model (EPPM). We compared differences among Latinx young adults and parents of adolescents of the effectiveness of messages that highlight HPV-related cancers, genital warts, or a control condition to promote online information seeking about the HPV vaccine—a known precursor to vaccination intention. Results found messages containing EPPM messaging elements produced significantly higher self-reported intention to seek information about HPV vaccines in comparison to a control message group. However, participants who received control messages had the highest percentage of hyperlink clicks to more information about HPV (a novel measure of information seeking). Findings suggest that fear appeals may be effective for promoting information seeking about HPV vaccination, which in turn could increase vaccine utilization, among Latinx participants. Clinical trial registration number (NCT05206669) retrospectively registered January 25, 2022. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article makes a contribution by articulating, for the first time, how hope and fear appeals were constructed as a rhetorical media device in a political advertising campaign context, specifically the 2014 Scottish independence referendum. Based on a qualitative content analysis of both sides' campaigning materials, an understanding of the fluid, responsive and symbiotic nature of these emotional appeals and how they are utilized against the other is outlined. The research reveals core dimensions for constructing persuasive media appeals. While, fear appeals should strive to create a threat perceived to be relevant, and significant, the deployed hope appeals should focus on generating alternative positive visions and be goal congruent. By understanding contested (political) campaigns, new types of hybrid hope and fears appeal emerge (i.e. hope and fear reduction appeals). Taking these findings together, allows the authors to provide prescriptions on how certain message appeal types might be used to induce particular emotional effects in the audience. This study articulates how hope and fear media appeals were constructed, and used to counteract each other, in a referendum context. Fear and hope can be elicited via three principal mechanisms: 1) Developing threats (fear) perceived as relevant, significant and expected to occur), 2) Deploying hope against fear by creating alternative, positive visions for target audiences 3) Creating messages that reduce feelings of fear or hope by reducing perceptions of the dimensions required to create them. Bringing these findings together allows the researchers to provide a prescription for how to induce particular hope/fear effects in the target audience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Village Family Planning, also known as Kampung KB, was formed by the Indonesian National Family Planning Coordinating Board (BKKBN). This study focused on the Kampung KB area in Bergas Semarang that grew from 'primary' to 'developing.' Since 2018, the progress is marked by the data on the increase in couples carrying out family planning. In September 2020, the number of fertile age couples (PUS) who already have two children but have not participated in family planning (TIAL) was as many as 43 couples. Meanwhile, the latest data in August 2022 showed a decline in TIAL of 9 couples. This study aimed to determine the persuasive communication strategies of family planning volunteers in Kampung KB Bergas, Semarang. Qualitative descriptive research methods and Elaboration Likelihood (ELM) theory were used to explain the persuasive communication strategies used by volunteers. The study results showed they used a persuasive communication strategy with a central route in ELM theory. In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic has become a persuasive communication strategy in the post-pandemic era with a fear appeal approach that encourages increased use of contraceptives - one of the family planning village programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of high-stakes qualifications, teachers may warn students of the negative consequences of failure as a tactic designed to increase engagement and, ultimately, achievement. Previous studies have shown that these types of messages, namely fear appeals, are indirectly related to engagement and achievement in different ways, depending on how they are evaluated by the student. When fear appeals are evaluated as a challenge, they are positively related to engagement and achievement. When evaluated as a threat, fear appeals are negatively related to engagement and achievement. In the present study, we offer a robust test of these relations in a multilevel model that controls for autoregressive and concurrent relations in the domain of mathematics. Self-reported data were collected from 1,530 participants, aged 14–16 years, at two time points over the final 2 years of secondary education. These data were linked to prior and subsequent achievement. Results showed that students who attended to fear appeals and evaluated them as a challenge showed higher subsequent engagement, and students who showed higher engagement showed higher achievement. Accordingly, it may be beneficial to identify those students likely to evaluate fear appeals as a threat and intervene to enhance the likelihood of a challenge evaluation (e.g., building confidence through strategy focused feedback and strengthening beliefs in the value of effort). Given the difficulties associated with teachers judging students' motivation and emotion as private experiences, methods to access student voice should be considered. Educational Impact and Implications Statement: Teachers may communicate messages with a motivational impact, including negative messages (i.e., fear appeals), in the context of high-stakes qualifications. It is, therefore, useful to know and understand which messages may be more or less effective and under which conditions. Our study showed that if evaluated as a challenge (as opposed to threat), fear appeals could be an efficacious means to promoting students' engagement. However, given the difficulty of identifying and targeting individual students' responses to these messages, fear appeals should be used cautiously by potentially implementing a personalized approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study is to investigate how message framing influences people's risk perceptions, protective action decision making, and behavioral response. We make a case for both revising and extending the use of the protective action decision model (PADM) and message framing theory to examine the message characteristics of the adenovirus warnings during this crisis event, as well as participants' impressions and behavioral responses to health risk communication messages. The data were collected from three focus group sessions, held at the University of Maryland. We found evidence to suggest that fear appeals and efficacy focused messaging may increase the effectiveness of health risk messages for university virus outbreaks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building on the health belief model (HBM), this research tests, over six months, how the exposure to COVID-related information in the media affects fear, which in turn conditions beliefs about the severity of the virus, susceptibility of getting the virus, and benefits of safety measures. These health beliefs ultimately lead to social distancing and panic buying. As a first contribution, we find that fear is not directly triggered by the objective severity of a crisis, but rather formed over time by the way individuals are exposed to media. Second, we show that fear affects behaviors through the components of the HBM which relate to the risks/benefits of a situation. Last, we find that critical thinking about media content amplifies the "adaptive" responses of our model (e.g., health beliefs, social distancing) and reduces its "maladaptive" responses (e.g., panic buying). Interestingly, we note that the beneficial effect of critical thinking about media content disappears as the level of fear increases over time. The implications of these findings for policymakers, media companies, and theory are further discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much research on influence operations (IO) and cyber-enabled influence operations (CEIO) rests on the assumption that state-backed digital interference attempts to generically produce sociopolitical division favorable to the perpetrator's own interests. And yet, the empirical record of malicious IO during the 2010s show that social media manipulation and messaging takes a number of forms. In this article, we survey arguments regarding the targeting tactics and techniques associated with digital age IO and suggest that existing accounts tend to ignore the strategic context of foreign interference. We propose that state-sponsored IO are not unlike conventional political messaging campaigns in that they are an evolving flow of information rooted in several key objectives and assumptions. However, the strategic position of foreign actors as an outside force constrains opportunities for effective manipulation and forces certain operational constraints that shape practice. These outside actors, generally unable to create sensation from nothing without being unveiled, rely on domestic events tied to a broad macrosocial division (e.g. an act of race violence or protest activity) to create the conditions wherein social media manipulation can be leveraged to strategic gain. Once an event occurs, belligerents tailor steps being taken to embed themselves in relevant social networks with the goal of turning that influence toward some action. We illustrate and validate this framework using the content of the Russian Federation's coordinated trolling campaign against the USA between 2015 and 2016. We deploy an empirical testing approach centered on fear appeals as a likely method for engaging foreign populations relative to some domestic triggering event and find support of our framework. Specifically, we show that while strong associations exist between Russian ad emissions on Facebook and societal unrest in the period, those relationships are not statistically causal. We find a temporal ordering of social media content that is highly suggestive of a fear appeals strategy responsive to macrosocial dividing events. Of unique interest, we also see that malware is targeted to social media populations at later stages of the fear appeal threat lifecycle, implying lessons for those specifically interested in the relationship between CEIO and disinformation tactics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although fear appeals are widely used in health campaigns, empirical studies have produced conflicting results regarding their effectiveness. To understand the impact of fear appeal in health campaigns, this study investigates the relationship between fear, anger, and smoking status in the context of an antismoking campaign. Using a survey of 829 people in South Korea, this study tests the three-way interactive model with the PROCESS macro. Results indicate that the effect of fear on attitudes toward the campaign depends on the level of anger, and show that the impact of 'anger-adjusted' additional fear appears only among nonsmokers. Implications for antismoking advertising strategies are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

During crises, journalists rely on emotional appeals to alert the public. This includes fear appeals, i.e., journalistic depictions of threats and measures against them. Focusing on the coronavirus crisis, this study analyzes the prevalence of fear appeals in journalistic news, differences between outlets, and changes over time. It employs a manual content analysis of UK online news between January and May 2020 (N = 1048). Results indicate that, during the early phases of the coronavirus pandemic, journalists relied heavily on fear-inducing messages by emphasizing threats related to COVID-19 and, though to a lesser degree, measures against these threats. Besides differences between tabloids and quality outlets, we find that fear-inducing content decreased before the UK itself became most affected, indicating that coverage served a warning function rather than mirroring national affectedness. Overall, the study illustrates that fear appeals are common in coverage of crises, where they enable journalists to take on the role of public mobilizers and facilitators of crises response strategies, for instance by governments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Background The purpose of the present study was to examine the effectiveness of the injury awareness and prevention programme P.A.R.T.Y. (Prevent Alcohol and Risk-Related Trauma in Youth) in Germany. On a designated P.A R.T.Y. day, school classes spend a day in a trauma hospital experiencing the various wards through which a seriously injured person goes. A further goal of the study was to reveal indications of the programme’s mechanism of action by testing theory-based impact models of fear appeals and cognitive beliefs. Methods In a quasi-experimental longitudinal study with three measurement times the participants of 19 P.A.R.T.Y. days (n = 330), as well as pupils who did not attend the programme (n = 244), were interviewed with a standardised questionnaire. They reported risk behaviour, feelings of threat and cognitive beliefs about road traffic. The data were analysed using a meta-analytical approach to estimate an average effect size across the different P.A.R.T.Y. days. Path models were used to identify possible mechanisms of action. Results For most of the parameters, small positive effects could be proven immediately after the P.A.R.T.Y. intervention. However, after four to 5 months only one statistically significant effect was found. Using path analytical models, important predictors for behavioural changes (e.g. self-efficacy) could be identified. But for these predictors no or only short-term effects were observed in the meta-analysis. Conclusions Fear appeals as used primarily in the P.A.R.T.Y. programme appear to cause behavioural changes only to a limited extent and only in the short-term, especially if the strengthening of psychosocial resources is not given sufficient consideration. The participants must also cognitively process the experiences in the hospital. Accordingly, consideration should be given to how the P.A.R.T.Y. program could be adapted to complement the fear appeal with cognitive components.

This longitudinal study examines how well the EPPM predicts and explains college students’ voting behavior. One-hundred-and-seventy-eight undergraduate students filled out a survey at two points in time: (1) four weeks before and (2) one week after the 2022 midterm election. As hypothesized, the EPPM accurately predicted danger control outcomes (i.e., severity, susceptibility, self-efficacy, and response efficacy predicted voting intentions, and voting intentions predicted voting behavior). The EPPM also predicted one fear control outcome (though only the path between severity and fear was significant). More specifically, the EPPM explained 45.7% of the variance in intention, 81.7% of the variance in behavior, 77% of the variance in contesting, and 33.6% of the variance in suppression.

Covid-19 and the government measures taken to combat the pandemic have fueled populist protests in Germany and Austria. Social media played a key role in the emergence of these protests. This study argues that the topic of Covid-19 has triggered populist user comments on Facebook pages of German and Austrian mass media. Drawing on media psychology, this article theorizes populist comments as an expression of “reactance,” sparked by repeated “fear appeals” in posts about Covid-19. Several hypotheses are derived from this claim and tested on a dataset of N = 25,121 Facebook posts, posted between January 2020 and May 2021 on nine pages of German and Austrian mass media, and 1.4 million corresponding user comments. To measure content-based variables automatically, this study develops, validates, and applies dictionaries. The study finds that the topic of Covid-19 did trigger populist user comments and that this effect grew over time. Surprisingly, neither the stringency of government measures nor mentions of elitist actors were found to have the expected amplifying effect. The study discusses the findings against the background of governing the ongoing crisis and worrisome developments in the online public sphere.

To begin building an understanding of how thoughts about God influence consumer persuasion processes and outcomes, the current research explores how reminders of God affect consumer compliance with fear-based advertising. Results across seven studies demonstrate that when the concept of God is salient, consumer compliance and persuasion in response to fear appeals is dampened. Importantly, the results suggest that one reason for this persuasion-dampening effect of God salience is the fact that consumers associate the concept of God with the idea of unlimited support. Consistent with this, the results reveal that when God is not associated with the idea of support, the dampening effect of God salience on fear appeal compliance is eliminated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has brought forth conversations about effective behavior change models for increasing prevention behavior, ranging from wearing masks in public to physical distancing. Among the considered behavior change techniques is the use of fear appeals, through which a negative possible outcome is emphasized to invoke fear, which in turn may promote prevention behaviors to counter the likelihood of the negative outcome. Although fear is hypothesized as health promoting in some theories of health behavior, little research has rigorously assessed the relationship. Objective: In our exploratory analyses, we aim to examine the association, including directionality of the association between fear of COVID-19 and COVID-19 prevention behaviors across 2 time points during the early COVID-19 pandemic among a sample of US women. Methods: The COPE study, a web-based survey of US women's COVID-19 experiences, was deployed in May-June 2020 (time 1) with follow-up in December 2020-January 2021 (time 2; n=200). Demographic characteristics as well as fear of COVID-19 and COVID-19 prevention behaviors (eg, staying home except for essential activities, physical distancing in public, and masking in public) were measured. Descriptive and bivariate analyses were used to characterize COVID-19 prevention behaviors and fear of COVID-19 among participants. Cross-lagged panel analysis, a type of structural equation modeling that assesses directionality of temporal associations, was used to understand relationships, if any, between variables of interest. Results: We found cross-sectional associations between fear of COVID-19 and staying home and physical distancing, as well as temporal associations between fear at time 1 and time 2 and prevention behaviors at time 1 and time 2. However, results of the cross-lagged panel analysis indicated no cross-lagged temporal relationships between fear of COVID-19 and COVID-19 prevention behaviors 6 months apart. Conclusions: Fear of COVID-19 did not appear to predict COVID-19 prevention behaviors 6 months after initial measurements among the sample of women recruited for our study. Future research should rigorously test these associations longitudinally, and alternative methods of public health prevention promotion should be considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study adopted the extended parallel process model (EPPM) and dual process models to examine how recipients' reactance proneness affected the appraisal of threat and efficacy, which, in turn, influenced their use of information-processing modes, attitudes, and behavioral intentions regarding the mitigation of microplastic pollutions in Taiwan. An experiment was conducted using 362 college students as the subjects. The results yielded three conclusions: (1) Fear-induced communication was an effective persuasive approach because this approach was more likely to guide the recipients to adopt a systematic mode to process messages. (2) Recipients' reactance proneness was discovered to first affect their perceived threat and perceived efficacy, which, in turn, influenced their attitudes and behavioral intention regarding the prevention of microplastic pollution, demonstrating that individual differences mediate fear-appeal messages to affect persuasive outcomes. (3) Perceived threat was important for fear-appeal messages to obtain persuasive outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Communicating complex information about environmental health risks in a single message is impossible. Thus, message designers hope that risk messages encourage people to think more about the message and risks, look for more information, and ultimately make behavior changes. The presentation of information about environmental risks using threat appeals is a common message design strategy thought to increase message engagement and influence attitudes, information seeking, and risk reduction behaviors. We compared lower threat messages, which did not include explicit statements about susceptibility and severity of a risk, to higher threat messages, which did. We combined predictions from the extended parallel process model with dual‐process theories of persuasion to examine whether people respond to these types of messages differently. In an online experiment, participants (N = 892) were randomly assigned to a message condition (higher or lower threat) and topic condition (arsenic, bisphenol A, or volatile organic compounds). Overall, participants exposed to higher threat messages (regardless of risk topic) reported experiencing higher levels of fear. Higher levels of fear were associated with more positive thoughts about the message (in alignment with the message advocacy) and fewer negative thoughts about the message (against the message advocacy), both of which influenced message attitudes. Finally, message attitudes were associated with increased information seeking and intentions to engage in risk reduction behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Extended Parallel Process Model posits that fear-appeal messages are processed only when message recipients perceive a critical level of threat. The more recent Terror Management Health Model suggests that, in addition to level of perceived threat, the nature of the threat also influences how target audiences process fear appeals. Specifically, fear appeals that utilize the threat of death as a consequence trigger both conscious and nonconscious responses that influence message recipients' health-related decisions. Accounting for the influence of consciousness of death helps explain maladaptive responses that extant theory has been unable to explain. Results from an experiment indicate that, when the level of perceived fear was the same across participants, the Extended Parallel Process Model successfully predicted persuasive outcomes for fear appeals that utilized the threat of arrest or serious injury as a consequence of noncompliance. However, for fear appeals that utilized the threat of death as a consequence of noncompliance, as predicted by the Terror Management Health Model, ego involvement in the health-related behavior predicted persuasive outcomes more accurately than the dual fear control and danger control processes. These findings suggest that incorporating consciousness of death and ego involvement can avoid conceptual problems with the level-of-fear construct, provide a meaningful way to predict fear-appeal responses across target audiences, and explain maladaptive responses that have eluded the explanations of extant fear-appeal theories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Fear appeals are discourses commonly used by teachers to motivate students especially when academic outcomes are paramount. Fear appeals have been associated with better and worse academic performance by the student recipients, with some evidence that fear appeals are detrimental for students who are anxious and have lower self‐efficacy. Little is known about the factors that drive teachers' use of fear appeals beyond a desire to increase motivation to excel. Aims: This study examined the relationship between the use of fear appeals, psychological distress, and self‐efficacy in both teachers and students. Sample: Participants were 377 students (81% female, age range 15 to 18, M = 16.68, SD = 0.49) and 96 teachers (73% female, Mean years teaching = 18.04, SD = 12.39). Methods: Participants completed surveys mid‐way through the first school term of their final year of high school. Student surveys examined student anxiety, depression, stress, self‐efficacy, and experience of teacher fear appeals. Teacher surveys examined teacher anxiety, depression, stress, emotional burnout, self‐efficacy, years of teaching, and use of fear appeals. Results: Teachers use of fear appeals was associated with student distress which was heightened for students with lower academic self‐efficacy. Similarly, teachers' use of fear appeals was associated with higher anxiety and lower self‐efficacy in teachers themselves. Conclusions: Therefore, the use and consequence of fear appeals is strongly linked to both student and teacher self‐efficacy and distress. Given the detrimental impacts of fear appeals on academic performance in vulnerable students, more research is needed on the consequences of fear appeals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rekabetin artması ürün çeşitliliğini çoğaltmakta buna bağlı olarak reklamların sayısı artmaktadır. Ürünlerinin satın alınmasını amaç edinen markalar mesajlarda farklılaşma yoluna gitmiş, korku çekiciliğini kullanmaya başlamıştır. Korku çekiciliği, hedef kitleyi korku unsurları barındıran mesajları kullanarak ikna etme çabasıdır. Buradan yola çıkarak televizyon reklamlarında korku unsurlarının nasıl kullanıldığını ortaya koymayı amaçlayan bu çalışmada, 2018-2019 yılları arasında yayınlanmış ve içinde korku unsuru barındıran televizyon reklamları amaçlı örneklem yöntemiyle seçilmiştir. Korku çekiciliği modelleri ile ilişkilendirilen reklamlar göstergebilimsel analiz yöntemi ile incelenmiştir. Araştırmanın sonucunda korku çekiciliği içeren mesajların insanlara, reklamlarda anlatılan tavsiyelere uymadıklarında başlarına gelecek olumsuz sonuçlara işaret edecek şekilde lanse edildiği tespit edilmiştir. Reklamların sonunda ise korkuyu gidermenin yolunun markaların kendi ürünleri ile mümkün olacağı sunulmuştur. Reklamlarda “fiziksel”, “kişisel” ve “sosyal” tehdit unsurlarının yoğun olarak kullanıldığı görülmüştür. Korku çekiciliği reklamlarının ağırlıklı olarak sigorta ve kasko şirketlerince uygulandığı belirlenmiştir.

Vaccination is the most cost-effective way to prevent mothers and infants from contracting tetanus. However, developing countries struggle with the persistent low take-up of vaccination. The low risk perceptions of disease can be one of the barriers to vaccination. One way to increase the risk perceptions of disease is to use salient loss-framed messages to highlight negative consequences of not getting vaccinated. We conducted a randomized controlled trial among 1,660 women in 80 villages in northeastern Nigeria. Respondents were randomly assigned to view one of two flipcharts: (1) control flipcharts, which contained written explanation about the severity of the disease, or (2) `scared-straight’ flipcharts that contain the salient information about the disease severity in addition to the written explanation about the severity of the disease. Additionally, respondents were provided randomly assigned amounts of cash incentives. The scared-straight intervention backfired among women with no previous experience of tetanus vaccination: it decreased their vaccine take-up by 3.7–6.1 percentage points, even though it increased their perceived risk of disease and their fear level. The negative effect of the scared-straight intervention is the most prevalent among women who received the lowest amount of cash incentive. Women without experience of tetanus vaccination might have responded to the scared-straight flipcharts by denying the information provided because the flipcharts were too frightening. The use of the scared-straight tactic is not recommended to aim for the improved take-up of vaccination in developing countries where people might face budget constraints for achieving desirable behaviors. Trial Registration: The trial was registered at ISRCTN registry (ID: ISRCTN95083356).

This study examines how fear appeals (moderate vs. high) and temporal frames (proximal vs. distal) interactively influenced consumers' attitude and purchase intention in the framework of eco-friendly clothing advertising in China. For that purpose, empirical analyses were performed by collecting data from 640 consumers across Mainland China. Results revealed that consumers who perceived eco-friendly clothing as highly relevant to themselves expressed more favorable attitude toward the advertising that employed moderate-level fear appeals than the advertising that employed high-level fear appeals. As for consumers with a low level of perceived personal relevance, they showed the most favorable attitude toward the brand when being exposed to high-level fear appeals with a distal frame, and the least favorable attitude toward the brand when being exposed to moderate-level fear appeals with a distal frame. These research results provide significant theoretical and practical implications for scholars and eco-friendly marketing professionals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The purpose of the present study was to examine the effectiveness of the injury awareness and prevention programme P.A.R.T.Y. (Prevent Alcohol and Risk-Related Trauma in Youth) in Germany. On a designated P.A R.T.Y. day, school classes spend a day in a trauma hospital experiencing the various wards through which a seriously injured person goes. A further goal of the study was to reveal indications of the programme's mechanism of action by testing theory-based impact models of fear appeals and cognitive beliefs.Methods: In a quasi-experimental longitudinal study with three measurement times the participants of 19 P.A.R.T.Y. days (n = 330), as well as pupils who did not attend the programme (n = 244), were interviewed with a standardised questionnaire. They reported risk behaviour, feelings of threat and cognitive beliefs about road traffic. The data were analysed using a meta-analytical approach to estimate an average effect size across the different P.A.R.T.Y. days. Path models were used to identify possible mechanisms of action.Results: For most of the parameters, small positive effects could be proven immediately after the P.A.R.T.Y.Intervention: However, after four to 5 months only one statistically significant effect was found. Using path analytical models, important predictors for behavioural changes (e.g. self-efficacy) could be identified. But for these predictors no or only short-term effects were observed in the meta-analysis.Conclusions: Fear appeals as used primarily in the P.A.R.T.Y. programme appear to cause behavioural changes only to a limited extent and only in the short-term, especially if the strengthening of psychosocial resources is not given sufficient consideration. The participants must also cognitively process the experiences in the hospital. Accordingly, consideration should be given to how the P.A.R.T.Y. program could be adapted to complement the fear appeal with cognitive components. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The social facilitation of eating plays a significant role in influencing individuals' eating decisions. However, how social eating cues are processed in health promotion messages is unclear. This study examined individuals' food craving in response to social cues in images (Experiment 1) and emotional experiences, perceived threat, perceived efficacy, behavioral intentions, and motivational coactivation elicited by social eating cues in obesity prevention fear appeals (Experiment 2). Results suggested that the presence of a group of people eating in an image facilitated food craving for the presented foods. Moreover, fear appeals that presented obesity and its consequences with more social eating cues, versus individual eating cues, generated greater positive emotional responses, perceived threat severity, response and self-efficacy, and motivational coactivation indicating more attention and threat vigilance. However, these cues also generated fewer self-reported intentions to change unhealthy eating behavior s. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conservationists have long sought to reduce consumer demand for products from overexploited wildlife species. Health practitioners have also begun calling for reductions in the wildlife trade to reduce pandemic risk. Most wildlife‐focused demand reduction campaigns have lacked rigorous evaluations and thus their impacts remain unknown. There is thus an urgent need to review the evidence from beyond conservation science to inform future demand‐reduction efforts. We searched for systematic reviews of interventions that aimed to reduce consumer demand for products that are harmful (e.g., cigarettes and illicit drugs). In total, 41 systematic reviews were assessed, and their data extracted. Mass‐media campaigns and incentive programs were, on average, ineffective. While advertising bans, social marketing, and location bans were promising, there was insufficient robust evidence to draw firm conclusions. In contrast, the evidence for the effectiveness of norm appeals and risk warnings was stronger, with some caveats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Conservationists have long sought to reduce consumer demand for products from overexploited wildlife species. Health practitioners have also begun calling for reductions in the wildlife trade to reduce pandemic risk. Most wildlife‐focused demand reduction campaigns have lacked rigorous evaluations and thus their impacts remain unknown. There is thus an urgent need to review the evidence from beyond conservation science to inform future demand‐reduction efforts. We searched for systematic reviews of interventions that aimed to reduce consumer demand for products that are harmful (e.g., cigarettes and illicit drugs). In total, 41 systematic reviews were assessed, and their data extracted. Mass‐media campaigns and incentive programs were, on average, ineffective. While advertising bans, social marketing, and location bans were promising, there was insufficient robust evidence to draw firm conclusions. In contrast, the evidence for the effectiveness of norm appeals and risk warnings was stronger, with some caveats.

The social facilitation of eating plays a significant role in influencing individuals’ eating decisions. However, how social eating cues are processed in health promotion messages is unclear. This study examined individuals’ food craving in response to social cues in images (Experiment 1) and emotional experiences, perceived threat, perceived efficacy, behavioral intentions, and motivational coactivation elicited by social eating cues in obesity prevention fear appeals (Experiment 2). Results suggested that the presence of a group of people eating in an image facilitated food craving for the presented foods. Moreover, fear appeals that presented obesity and its consequences with more social eating cues, versus individual eating cues, generated greater positive emotional responses, perceived threat severity, response and self-efficacy, and motivational coactivation indicating more attention and threat vigilance. However, these cues also generated fewer self-reported intentions to change unhealthy eating behaviors. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.

Covid‐19 and the government measures taken to combat the pandemic have fueled populist protests in Germany and Austria. Social media played a key role in the emergence of these protests. This study argues that the topic of Covid‐19 has triggered populist user comments on Facebook pages of German and Austrian mass media. Drawing on media psychology, this article theorizes populist comments as an expression of “reactance,” sparked by repeated “fear appeals” in posts about Covid‐19. Several hypotheses are derived from this claim and tested on a dataset of N = 25,121 Facebook posts, posted between January 2020 and May 2021 on nine pages of German and Austrian mass media, and 1.4 million corresponding user comments. To measure content‐based variables automatically, this study develops, validates, and applies dictionaries. The study finds that the topic of Covid‐19 did trigger populist user comments and that this effect grew over time. Surprisingly, neither the stringency of government measures nor mentions of elitist actors were found to have the expected amplifying effect. The study discusses the findings against the background of governing the ongoing crisis and worrisome developments in the online public sphere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]