Abstract
BackgroundCultural differences in affective and cognitive intrinsic motivation could pose challenges for global public health campaigns, which use cognitive or affective goals to evoke desired attitudes and proactive health-promoting actions. This study aimed to identify cross-cultural differences in affective and cognitive intrinsic motivation and discuss the potential value of this information for public health promotion.MethodsA cross-sectional survey using cross-culturally validated need for affect (NFA) and need for cognition (NFC) scales was carried out among 1166 Chinese participants, and the results were compared with published data from 980 American participants. Additionally, we assessed a highly prevalent symbolic geriatric health condition, hearing loss, in 500 Chinese community-dwelling seniors. The Chinese NFA scale was developed following the translation-back translation procedure, and the psychometric evaluation was performed by applying confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), exploratory structural equation modeling (ESEM), correlation analysis and multigroup invariance test. MANOVA and Hedge’s g statistic were employed to compare the NFA and NFC levels between individuals from different countries and between Chinese seniors with and without hearing loss. The relation of early hearing intervention intention to NFA and NFC was also explored in the Chinese sample.ResultsA basic two-factor model of NFA adequately fit the sample data from Chinese and American cultures. The questionnaire demonstrated reasonable invariance of the factor structure and factor loadings across the groups. Those in the primary Chinese sample had lower NFA and NFC than their American peers. This difference held in the senior sample. Moreover, Chinese seniors with hearing loss had even lower NFA and NFC than those without hearing loss. Their early hearing intervention intention was low but was associated with intrinsic motivation.ConclusionsThe Need for Affect (NFA) construct may be generalized beyond its Western origins. There was a general lack of affective and cognitive intrinsic motivation in Chinese individuals, particularly in seniors with hearing loss, compared with their American peers. These differences point to a potential challenge in framing effective messages for some cultures in the geriatric public health domain. Ideally, recognizing and understanding this challenge will inspire the consideration of novel persuasive strategies for these audiences.
Highlights
Cultural differences in affective and cognitive intrinsic motivation could pose challenges for global public health campaigns, which use cognitive or affective goals to evoke desired attitudes and proactive healthpromoting actions
The construct validity of the need for affect (NFA) scale in the Chinese and American samples was examined by testing the onelevel two-factor model (Fig. 1) via confirmatory factor analysis and exploratory structural equation modeling (ESEM) with AMOS 24.0
The correlation between NFA and need for cognition (NFC) in the Chinese sample was .221 (p < .001), which was comparable with that reported by Appel et al [22] (r = .170, p < .001), Z = 1.19, p =
Summary
Cultural differences in affective and cognitive intrinsic motivation could pose challenges for global public health campaigns, which use cognitive or affective goals to evoke desired attitudes and proactive healthpromoting actions. This study aimed to identify cross-cultural differences in affective and cognitive intrinsic motivation and discuss the potential value of this information for public health promotion. Affective and cognitive orientation (indexed by need for affect and need for cognition) differs across individuals and is associated with the effectiveness of messages in persuasive communication [1, 2] and consequent proactive behaviors [3]. Affective and cognitive orientation may be important for global persuasive communication efforts, e.g., public health campaigns, as similar campaign content might yield diverse outcomes across national cultures if there are cross-cultural differences in affective and cognitive orientation. In a review on structural matching effects in persuasive communication, Teeny et al [5] pointed out that tailoring messages to cultural characteristics is a high-level matching strategy for persuasion enhancement
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