Gender Moderates Persuasion Effects of Negative Health Messages

Effects of message framing and health literacy on intention to perform diabetes self-care: A randomized controlled trial

PurposeThe author examined effects of endorser type and message framing on visual attention and ad effectiveness in health ads, including the moderator of involvement. This paper aims to discuss this issue.Design/methodology/approachAn experiment was conducted with a 2 (celebrity vs. expert) × 2 (positive vs. negative framing) between-subject factorial design. Eye-tracking measured visual attention and a questionnaire measured ad effectiveness and product involvement.FindingsExperimental data from 78 responses showed no vampire effect in the health advertisements. Celebrity endorsement with negative message framing received more attention and had less ad recall than that with positive message framing. Negative and positive message framing attracted the same amount of attention and ad recall in the expert endorsement condition. High involvement participants paid more attention to the ad message with the expert than that with the celebrity, but ad recall was not significantly increased. Low involvement participants exhibited the same attention to the ad message with the expert and with the celebrity, but had greater recall of the ad message with the expert. Visual attention to the endorser was associated with ad attitude but not with ad recall. Ad attitude impacted behavioral intention.Originality/valueStudies examining influences of celebrity and message framing on ad effectiveness have focused on the response to advertising stimuli, not the information process. The author provides empirical evidence of the viewers' information processing of endorsers and health messages, and its relationship with ad effectiveness. The study contributes to the literature by combining endorser and message framing in health ads to promote public health communication from the information processing perspective.

The framing effect is the phenomenon in which different descriptions of an identical problem can result in different choices. The influence of negative emotions on the framing effect and its neurocognitive basis are important issues, especially in the domain of saving lives, which is essential and highly risky. In each trial of our experiment, the emotion stimulus is presented to the participants, followed by the decision-making stimulus, which comprises certain and risky options with the same expected value. Each pair of options is positively or negatively framed. The behavioral results indicate a significant interactive effect between negative emotion and frame; thus, the risk preference under the positive frame can be enhanced by negative emotions, whereas this finding is not true under the negative frame. The event-related potential analysis indicates that choosing certain options under the positive frame with negative emotion priming generates smaller P2 and P3 amplitudes and a larger N2 amplitude than with neutral emotion priming. The event-related potential findings indicate that individuals can detect risk faster and experience more conflict and increased decision difficulty if they choose certain options under the positive frame with negative priming compared with neutral priming.

A robust finding in research on message framing is that negatively framed messages are more (less) effective than positively framed ones when the level of cognitive elaboration is high (low). However, recent research presents evidence that is contrary to previous findings: negative framing being less (more) effective than positive framing when the level of elaboration is high (low). In this article, we attempt to resolve the conflicting findings by highlighting the moderating roles of motivation and opportunity-related variables on the effectiveness of negative versus positive message frames. Results from two experiments suggest that under conditions of low processing motivation, negative framing is more (less) effective than positive framing when the level of processing opportunity is low (high). Under conditions of high processing motivation, negative framing is more effective than positive framing, irrespective of the level of processing opportunity.

Health warnings promote healthier dietary decision making: Effects of positive versus negative message framing and graphic versus text-based warnings

The main objective of this study is to understand the choices of communal and exchange relations faced with two different customization processes. Communal cares about their friend’s needs and benefits; whereas Exchange relations regards everything their do as fair and has no incentive to understand each other’s mental state or preference. This study want to know what is the difference of these two types of people dealing with the positive and negative option framing (+ OF,-OF). Customized products tend to have different options, when customers select options, the price will rise and so will the product utility will increase; when the customers to reject options, the price will fall but product utility will decline. Communal relation clients has the motivation to get to know each other's preferences and needs, are also concerned about their friend’s “fuzhi”, will carefully elaborate the options, making them less susceptible to the impact of the option framing and the decrease the magnitude of base and full effect. Also, when selecting customers seek reasons for purchase; when rejecting, customers will find reasons to reject. Projection most likely would occur with communal relations dealing with reasons to buy, effected most by their own preferences influence and their knowledge of their friend’s preference. Under this condition creates a bias and decreases their prediction accuracy. With negative framing, however, gift givers have their eyes on negative (non-preference), should therefore not cast their preferences, thus delivering a relatively correct guess. Results show that the type of relationship and option framing does not have effect on purchase amount. But with prediction accuracy, exchange relations had better guesses than communal relations when using the positive framing; negative framing had opposite results.

Emotion generation and emotion regulation: The role of emotion beliefs

Continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP), the best available treatment for obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), requires long-term compliance to be effective. Behavioral interventions may be used to improve adherence to CPAP. We aimed to investigate whether positive or negative message framing impacts on CPAP compliance in patients with OSA, when compared to standard care. Consenting patients with confirmed OSA were randomly allocated to receive along with their CPAP either positively or negatively framed messages (Pos; Neg), or standard care (Con). Standardized motivational messages were read out to patients during an initial teaching session and through weekly telephone calls. Patients' compliance data were reviewed 2 and 6 weeks following CPAP initiation. We randomized 112 patients to groups that were matched for age, BMI, and OSA severity. The positively framed group (Pos) showed greater CPAP usage after 2 weeks (total use 53.7±31.4 hours) as compared to the negatively framed and the control group (35.6±27.4 and 40.8±33.5 hours, P<0.05); however, no differences were seen at 6 weeks. There were more dropouts in the control group than in either framed groups (Pos n=5; Neg n=8; Con n=11; P<0.05). Positively framed messages can improve CPAP adherence in patients with OSA in the short-term; however, strategies for implementing its long-term use need to be developed.

ObjectiveThe present study investigated the associations between symptom-related expectations, self-management experiences and expectation framing on somatic symptom severity in university students in two conditions (positive or standard expectation framing). We...

Feeling Down: Idiom or Nature?

As many of our decisions rely on relativity in judgmental processes, consumers also conduct comparative evaluations to build most of their preferences, if not all. This research investigates how framing of product information influences the comparative evaluation process performed during purchase decisions. In particular, we study the impact of attribute framing on consumers’ perceptions and attitudes, and eventually on their preferences. In a series of six experiments, we show that consumers tend to perceive two products more differently from each other, when the focal attributes of products are framed negatively (vs. positively). We explain this greater perceptual difference in negative frames with stronger sensitivity to losses (vs. gains), which leads to the amplified unfavorability of the inferior product in negative frames. In addition to the perceptual shift, results also show that framing changes attitudes towards price. We observe a stronger price-quality association in negative (vs. positive) frames and explain this finding with the adversity of drawing quality inferences out of unfavorable information. Hence, consumers are more likely to build favorable attitudes for high-priced products, when attributes are framed negatively (vs. positively). As a result of this stronger price-quality inference, preference for the more expensive product is found to be greater when products are presented in negative frames than in positive frames. Overall, this research contributes to framing and pricing literatures by observing how the entire comparative decision process is shaped on the basis of attribute framing.

Framing is a process of generating meaning by utilizing language. After reading positive or negative framing, this study aims to determine whether there are differences in tax compliance decisions between feminine gender taxpayers and masculine gender taxpayers. Prospect Theory becomes the basis for explaining how framing can affect individual choices. Sampled in this study is a student of the Accounting study program at Khairun University who has passed the Taxation course. The sampling technique used in this study was purposive sampling, using an experimental research model with a 2x2 factorial design. The analysis used by the researchers was the Mann-Whitney U test to test the hypothesis. This study's results show a difference in tax compliance between taxpayers who are given positive and negative framing. There is a difference between the Taxpayer with the masculine gender and the feminine gender after being given negative framing. However, there is no difference between taxpayers of feminine gender and masculine gender after being given positive framing. The results obtained from interaction testing also proved the influence of the difference between positive and negative framing, or masculine and feminine gender, on tax compliance.

This study is based on Regulatory Fit Theory, Cognitive Dissonance Theory, and the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) to explore factors affecting teenagers’ awareness and behavior regarding wild animal protection. Experiment 1 aimed to examine whether emotional and rational advertising appeal frames differentially influence wild animal protection among teenagers. Participants were 66 junior middle school students from Beijing, China. The Questionnaire Regarding Wild Animal Protection Awareness and the Questionnaire Regarding Wild Animal Protection Behavior were used. Results showed that rational and emotional advertising appeals did not significantly influence teenagers’ wild animal protection awareness or behavior. Experiment 2 explored the effect of attribute framing and emotion on wild animal protection awareness and behavior among 43 junior middle school students using the same questionnaires. The results were as follows: (1) Framing and emotion interactively influenced wild animal protection awareness and behavior; (2) Under the negative frame, negative emotions had a stronger effect than positive emotions; and (3) Under positive emotions, the positive frame had a stronger effect than the negative frame. These findings suggest that framing and emotion can influence teenagers’ wild animal protection awareness and behavior.

Messages to promote health behavior are essential when considering health promotion, disease prevention, and healthy life expectancy. The present study aimed to examine whether (1) positive and negative goal-framing messages affect message memory and behavioral intention differently in younger, middle-aged, and older adults, (2) framing effects are mediated by interest in health (health promotion and disease prevention) and emotion regulation (cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression), and (3) mediation effects differ between positive and negative frames. Participants (N = 1248) aged 20 to 70 years were divided into positive and negative frame conditions. Framing demonstrated interactive effects on message memory; all age groups showed higher recognition accuracy in the positive than the negative frame. The accuracy of younger adults was higher than that of older adults in the negative frame, while older adults showed higher accuracy than younger adults in the positive frame. Additionally, recognition accuracy was higher in the positive frame, as participants had higher interest in health promotion and used cognitive reappraisal more frequently. Contrariwise, emotion regulation and interest in health promotion did not have significant effects on memory in negative frames. Moreover, regardless of the message valence, age did not influence behavioral intention directly but was mediated by interest in health and emotion regulation, while the older the participants were, the higher their interest in health, resulting in higher intention. For emotion regulation, intention increased with higher reappraisal scores and decreased with increasing suppression. Our results suggest that interest in health and emotion regulation should be considered when examining the relationship between age and goal-framing for health messages.

The purpose of this research is to analyze the effect of the message framing on the perceived psychological risk on green environmental issues. Consumers nowadays have become more critical about issues on green consumer due to the increasing levels of consumers’ knowledge. Government and marketers also should perform active movement to increase consumers’ awareness of their environment. Those include giving a message to the consumers. When marketers deliver the message, they need to concern about message framing. Message framing is likely to influence the consumer's perception. Research design used in this study is design experiments. In this case the message was manipulated by message framing: positive and negative. The hypothesis of this study, H1: There are differences in perceived psychological risk perception on advertising by using positive and negative message framing, H2: There are differences in perceived psychological risk of consumers on advertising by using positive and negative framing that is reinforced with consumer knowledge. The analysis results of hypothesis 1 showed that there are significant differences in perceived psychological risk on advertising by using positive and negative message framing. Consumers feel that perceived psychological risk is lower in the ad with a positive message framing. Therefore, on advertising products related to green consumer issues, using positive message framing will be more effective. The analysis result of hypothesis 2 showed that there are no significant difference in perceived psychological risk on advertising by using positive and negative message framing that is reinforced by consumer knowledge. Consumer knowledge did not moderate the effect of message framing on perceived psychological risk.