Reactance:

Abstract

Frequently, public sector marketers seek to persuade individuals to engage or not engage in certain forms of behavior. However, research examining reactance suggests that certain choice-restricting messages that are conveyed in public sector promotional campaigns may actually result in promoting more of an undesired behavior or less of a desired behavior. Thus, an understanding of factors associated with reactance arousal may be critical to the overall success of promotional efforts undertaken by public sector marketers. In this paper, these factors are reviewed, and implications of reactance theory for designing promotional campaigns of non-profit and public sector organizations are discussed.