Researchers now believe anxiety disorders and PTSD are whole brain conditions. and transmitted securely. If the linear fear-persuasion hypothesis supported by the Mongeau (1998) and Witte and Allen (2000) meta-analyses, were the superior model of fear appeal effects, this value would be positive and significant. 2022 Nov 1:1-27. doi: 10.1007/s11024-022-09479-4. 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. One critique of the general study of fear-based persuasive appeals is that such research is typically studied in the lab rather than in real-world contexts in which message exposure and processing are not controlled and discussion of those messages with friends and family is possible. Exerting effort may be preferred to doing nothing at all. In an initial test of the model, the predictions that fear promotes less careful message processing relative to anger and uncertainty of message reassurance results in more careful processing that certainty of reassurance were supported. One Personality Trait Predicts Longevity More Than OthersBut Why? The fear-as-acquired drive model (often referred to as the drive model) argues that stimuli that evoke fear result in a drive to avoid the unpleasant emotional state (Hovland, Janis, & Kelly, 1953). Fear can be such a powerful tool that campaigns have been developed focusing on fear appeals. Fear appeals are messages that try to persuade people about the potential harm that may happen to them if they do not accept the messages recommendations (Tannenbaum et al., 2015). 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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. 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. The .gov means its official. 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. Additionally, researchers have investigated the effects of fear in other message contexts, from news media to user-generated digital content. Understanding the personalities of the audience (e.g., the typical characteristics and traits of women in comparison to men, or of adolescents versus young or middle-aged people, or of those who are health conscious versus those who are not) will help in designing a campaign that is better directed toward the targeted individuals. Given that fear-based messages, which may be perceived as a more manipulative message style, carry a higher likelihood of defensive processing and reactance, fear appeals may be a risky message strategy to use for this age group. 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. The message is conveyed clearly that if students want to achieve their goals (e.g., getting a good job; gaining entry into college, or graduate/medical/law school), they cannot risk poor or sometimes even average grades. How can peoples attitudes and behavior be changed? Hubenschmid L, Helmreich I, Kber G, Gilan D, Frenzel SB, van Dick R, Lieb K. Front Public Health. 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. Fear appeals, also known as scare tactics, have been widely used to promote recommended preventive behaviors. 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). However, some evidence suggests a more nuanced picture. 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. 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. 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. For example, the core relational theme of fear is imminent threat. Maslows so-called "hierarchy of needs"is often presented as a five-level pyramid where the bottom four levels are "deficiency needs.". Fear appeals are often used in public health service announcements and health behavior change campaigns. 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). Care, however, should be taken not to stigmatize or exhibit bias regarding the audience; doing so could possibly backfire. If the threat appraisals are more dominant than the efficacy appraisals, individuals will seek to diminish their aroused fear through maladaptive behaviors, such as denigrating the message source or rationalizing their unhealthy behaviors. The meta-analysis did not, however, directly address interactions between the threat and efficacy elements. As such, it is evident that fear is used to persuade even very young audiences. Changes in Mental Health, Emotional Distress, and Substance Use Affecting Women Experiencing Violence and Their Service Providers during COVID-19 in a U.S. Southern State. Health persuasion through emoji: How emoji interacted with information source to predict health behaviors in COVID-19 situation. For generations of health educators, public health campaigns around health issues emphasized positive messages and highlighted . 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. (2015) calculated an average weighted effect size comparing groups exposed to moderate fear versus those exposed to high depicted fear. 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. 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. Give an example or create your own public health message using the fear appeal. Such research would, in turn, help determine what message structures would be best suited for which age groups and within what health contexts. 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). HHS Vulnerability Disclosure, Help A review of the literature on more general gender differences in fear may also help explain potential gender differences in responses to fear appeals. 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. 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. 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. This journal article, as well as other journal articles, can be found in scholarly databases available via most university libraries. Rather, news stories frequently highlight new health threats for which there are no clear solutions yet, leaving the audience to come up with their own ideas on how to best protect themselves. 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. Med Anthropol. As such, adaptive outcomes are likely. Still, meta-analyses across a range of fear- appeal studies have helped clarify the direction and magnitude of fears influence on persuasive outcomes and associated cognitions. 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). Bethesda, MD 20894, Web Policies It further asserts that the ordering or shifts in emotional states in response to changing message content may be critical to understanding persuasive outcomes. Whereas some . Communication, collaboration and cooperation can stop the 2019 coronavirus. Further, blunters were significantly more likely to actually obtain a mammogram in response to the more direct messages. The use of fear to motivate behavior change is well-documented across the lifespan. These appeals are effective at changing attitudes, intentions and behaviors. 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 . Multiple book chapters also provide nice overviews of the existing research on the emotion of fear. The link was not copied. 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. Such messages are most effective when they provide compelling arguments for the likelihood of negative outcomes if a certain advocated measure is not adopted, and when the arguments make a strong case that adopting the measure will . International Journal of Psychology, 49, 6370. Would you like email updates of new search results? government site. Answer: Fear appeal is simply a message (most commonly found in advertising) which is intended to bring fear to its audience; They either encourage or discourage their audience from participating in a specific behavior. They found positive relationships with severity (r = .44), susceptibility (r = .30), response efficacy (r = .36), and self-efficacy (r = .36). 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. By the 1990s, Kim Wittes extended parallel process model (EPPM) gained traction, and her 1992 piece in the journal Communication Monographs that first proposes the model is a good place to start understanding this perspective. Clearly, fear appeals do not only provoke fear reactions. As such, monitors and blunters may respond differently to fear appeal messages. A fear appeal is a means of persuasion that threatens the audience with a negative, physical . Tidsskr Nor Laegeforen. In order to fully support or reject tenets the original EPPM, additional research is needed. crisis communication; emergency; global health; health communications; risk. PostedSeptember 18, 2018 Although little research speaks to this issue, Williams-Piehota, Pizarro, Schneider, Mowad, and Salovey (2005) found that participants classified as blunters responded with less negative affect to mammography messages that were simple and direct versus lengthy and detailed in their presentation of threat and efficacy information. a fear appeal message is the amount of fear it is intended to arouse in message recipients. Fear messages that let the audience know they can perform the recommended behavior or that the behavior will have a positive result are more effective than fear appeal messages without mention of recommended actions. Fear appeals are more effective for women because women tend to be more prevention-focused than men. The fear-arousal appeal. In short, message consumers emotional states frame how they respond to the rest of the message, which in turn results in emotion-consistent decision-making and action. Ultimately, only 2.5% of stories included all four components associated with fear appeals. For example, if the message is so extreme, instead of being influenced by it, the audience could ignore the information altogether. As such, each theory or model does not always present a direct response to its immediate predecessor. 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). With a smaller set of studies (between 17 and 33), the authors also analyzed the relationship between fear appeal manipulations in the message content and cognitions. We contend that unintended negative outcomes can result from fear appeals that intensify the already complex pandemic and efforts to contain it. 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. 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). The site is secure. official website and that any information you provide is encrypted Of note, though the terms fear and anxiety are often used interchangeably in everyday language, they each represent unique affective states with, theoretically, different implications in persuasion contexts. For example, fear appeals begin with threat information followed by efficacy information. 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. 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. This relationship could indicate that individuals who are already in an anxious state of mind when presented with a fear appeal may be more accepting of the message than those who come to a message with less anxiety. 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. 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. Discover the world's . 2023 Jan 21;21:101343. doi: 10.1016/j.ssmph.2023.101343. FOIA http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0039729. These include distrust in public health authorities, skepticism of health messaging, a lack of uptake in recommended behaviors, and a plethora of other unintended consequences. (2015) conducted a meta-analysis based on 248 independent samples from studies that contained a treatment group exposed to a fear appeal; a comparison group (described by the authors as a group that was either not exposed to a message or exposed to a message specifically designed to not evoke fear, or exposed to a message meant to induce less fear than the treatment groups message); a manipulation of depicted fear; and a measure of attitudes, intentions, or behaviors. Although not specifically documented, the pervasiveness and endurance of cautionary tales in childrens literature suggest that such narratives are believed to be influential; and in light of the growing evidence of the persuasive influence of narratives on adults (Green, 2006; Green & Brock, 2000), there is reason to believe such stories do, indeed, have the desired influence on children. So, if an audience member appraises a message as representing an imminent threat to her own well-being, she will likely experience fear. This theoretical perspective also argues that older individuals have better memory for positive information than for negative information, suggesting that the threat component of fear appeals may not be as memorable as the efficacy component for this particular audience. Symbols such as dying people, coffins, gravestones or skulls may be used. We will refer to this as depicted fear to Through its divisions in 54 subfields of psychology and affiliations with 60 state, territorial and Canadian provincial associations, APA works to advance the creation, communication and application of psychological knowledge to benefit society and improve people's lives.