Experimental Effects of Tweets Encouraging Social Distancing: Effects of Source, Emotional Appeal, and Political Ideology on Emotion, Threat, and Efficacy.

Abstract

Public health officials and celebrities use social media to provide guidance to reduce the spread of COVID-19. Messages apply different promotional strategies to motivate behavior change, likely yielding divergent reactions from partisan audiences. The Extended Parallel Process Model (EPPM) suggests that perceived threat for a negative outcome should impact perceived need for the advocated health behavior, which should be more appealing to an audience if perceived it to be efficacious and feasible. This study examines the interactive effects of Tweet source, message emotional appeal, and audience political affiliation on US adults' perceptions of COVID-19 threat and social distancing efficacy during early months of the pandemic. This online survey experiment applies the EPPM to assess US adults' reactions to tweets encouraging social distancing. The experiment tests 3 emotional appeals (fear, humor, and neutral) and 2 sources (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC] and celebrity) on adults' emotional reactions and perceptions of COVID-19 threat and social distancing efficacy. The final sample included 415 US adults (242 Democrat and 173 Republican) recruited through Amazon's Mechanical Turk. Outcome measures were adapted from the EPPM and include perceived susceptibility to and severity of COVID-19, and response efficacy and self-efficacy regarding social distancing. Each was measured through the survey on a 7-point response scale. Humor and fear appeal messages evoked less fear and guilt responses than a neutral tweet from the CDC. Fear and guilt emotions predicted greater perceived threat, while hope and pride predicted efficacy constructs in relationships moderated by political ideology. Public health messages targeting a bipartisan audience through social media may increase perceived threat by inducing fear of COVID-19 infection. EPPM theory suggests boosting efficacy is also critical to message acceptance and behavior change; thus, inducing feelings of hope and pride in addition to fear may be particularly effective.