Effects Of Persuasive Messages Research Articles

The Effect of Persuasive Messages in Promoting Home-Based Physical Activity During COVID-19 Pandemic.

We tested the plausibility of a persuasion model to understand the effects of messages framed in terms of gain, non-loss, loss, and non-gain, and related to the physical, mental and social consequences of doing physical activity at home during the lockdown restrictions. 272 Italian participants responded to a questionnaire on their attitude and intention at Time 1, frequency of past behavior, and self-efficacy related to exercising at home. Then, participants were randomly assigned to four different message conditions: (a) gain messages focused on the positive outcomes associated with doing physical activity at home; (b) non-loss messages focused on the avoided negative outcomes associated with doing physical activity at home; (d) loss messages focused on the negative outcomes associated with not doing physical activity at home; (c) non-gain messages focused on the missed positive outcomes associated with not doing physical activity at home. After reading the messages, participants answered a series of questions regarding their perception of threat and fear, their evaluation of the messages, and their attitude and intention toward exercising at home at Time 2. Using multigroup structural equation modeling, we compared message conditions, and tested whether the effects of the messages on attitude and intention at Time 2 were mediated by message-induced threat, message-induced fear, and message evaluation. Results showed that the perception of the messages as not threatening was the key point to activate a positive evaluation of the recommendation. The highest persuasive effect was observed in the case of the non-loss frame, which did not threaten the receivers, triggered a moderated fear and, in turn, activated a positive evaluation of the recommendation, as well as higher attitude and intention to do home-based physical activity at Time 2. Overall, these results advance our comprehension of the effects of message framing on receivers' attitudes and intentions toward home-based physical activity.

Developing Messages Tailored to Self-construal, Time-orientation, and Perspective Taking to Promote 6-Month Exclusive Breastfeeding

Exclusive breastfeeding brings tremendous benefits to the mother and the baby but simultaneously poses great challenges. Research has been limited regarding the effectiveness of persuasive messages to promote exclusive breastfeeding, which leaves us with little understanding of how to enhance the exclusive breastfeeding rates. Guided by the message tailoring literature, this research employed a 2 (self- vs. other-oriented benefits) X 2 (short- vs. long-term benefits) X 2 (acknowledgment of disadvantages: yes vs. no) plus a no-message control condition between-subject factorial design and recruited 521 pregnant women to test the effectiveness of the persuasive messages. A significant interaction between perceived short- and long-term benefits of exclusive breastfeeding and participants’ time orientation was yielded. Additionally, a three-way interaction emerged among the three message manipulations, which shed light on future research on message tailoring. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

The effect of persuasive messages on hospital visitors' hand hygiene behavior.

Hospital visitors pose a risk for transmitting pathogens that can cause health care-associated infections. The present study aimed to test an evidence-based intervention to improve visitors' hand hygiene behavior through persuasive messages. For the 14-week-long field experiment, 7 signs were designed according to the principles of persuasion proposed by Cialdini: reciprocity, consistency, social-proof, unity, liking, authority, and scarcity. Each sign was displayed on a screen for 1 week directly above the hand-rub dispenser in a hospital lobby. After each 1-week posting, the screen was blank for 1 week. An electronic monitoring system counted 246,098 people entering and leaving the hospital's lobby and 17,308 dispenser usages. The signs based on the authority and the social-proof principles significantly increased the hand-rub dispenser usage rate in comparison to the average baseline usage rate. These results indicate that simple and cost-efficient interventions can initiate expedient behavior change in hospitals. However, the findings also highlight the importance of careful planning and rigorous pretesting of material for an intervention to be effective. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Supplemental Material for The Effect of Persuasive Messages on Hospital Visitors’ Hand Hygiene Behavior

Supplemental Material for The Effect of Persuasive Messages on Hospital Visitors’ Hand Hygiene Behavior

The effects of persuasive messages on cancer patients’ attitudes, norms and intention to express concerns

ObjectiveTo examine whether the use of persuasive messages in which cancer patients’ attitudes and perceived social norms were either simultaneously or exclusively targeted can positively change patients’ attitudes, perceived social norms and the intention to express concerns in consultations. MethodsTwo online experiments were conducted. The first experiment had a pre-test and post-test measurements design with 4 conditions (attitudes message, social norms message, combined message, control message). The second experiment had a pre-test and post-test measurements design with 2 conditions (message and no message group). ResultsThe results of the first study showed small positive changes for patients who could potentially change, but there were no differences in effects between conditions. A second study was conducted to determine whether these effects could be attributed to exposure to the message or to the pre-test questionnaire. There were no differences between the conditions. ConclusionThe results indicate that paying attention to the expression of concerns by patients might increase patients’ intention to express further concerns. Practice implicationsProviders might be able to support patients’ in their sharing of concerns through simple communication strategies such as explicitly mentioning that the expression of concerns is possible during a consultation.

Effect of persuasive messages on National Health Service Organ Donor Registrations: a pragmatic quasi-randomised controlled trial with one million UK road taxpayers

BackgroundA shortage of organs available for transplantation is causing loss of life. Increasing the number of individuals on the National Health Service (NHS) Organ Donor Register (ODR) is one way to address the shortage of organs. In Great Britain, new drivers registering for their driving licence are invited to join the ODR. A further 17 million drivers renew their road tax online each year, presenting an additional opportunity to prompt drivers to join the ODR. This trial explores the effect of adding persuasive messages to a prompt to join the ODR at the end of road tax payment transactions.MethodsIn this pragmatic, parallel group, quasi-randomised controlled trial, drivers renewing their road tax or registering for a driving licence were alternately allocated, using a JavaScript randomisation code embedded in the GOV.UK website, to view a control prompt inviting sign-ups to the ODR or the same prompt plus one of seven theoretically informed persuasive messages; (i) social norms alone, (ii) social norms plus the NHS ODR logo, (iii) social norms plus an image, (iv) loss frame, (v) gain frame, (vi) reciprocity and (vii) cognitive dissonance. The trial took place over a 4-week period in June 2013. The primary outcome measure was participants completing the online registration form (sign-ups).ResultsAltogether, 1,085,322 website users were included in the study. Further, 1171 more sign-ups were completed under the most effective message (reciprocity) compared to the control prompt alone (reciprocity: n = 4256, control: n = 3085; odds ratio, OR 1.38, 95% confidence interval 1.32–1.45, p < 0.001). The loss-framed message was as effective. All messages increased sign-ups compared to the control prompt apart from the social norms message plus image (n = 2879; OR 0.94, 95% confidence interval 0.89–0.99, p < 0.05).ConclusionsShort persuasive messages alongside a prompt can persuade more ODR sign-ups for individuals renewing their road tax than a prompt alone. The most effective message remains in place today. Since the trial in 2013, the same message has been implemented across 25 government end-of-transaction websites on GOV.UK, resulting in 529,000 new registrations to the ODR up to 31st October 2017.

Effect of persuasive messages on organ donation decisions: An experimental test

The supply of deceased donor organs is a limiting factor for transplantation based therapies. This paper utilizes a laboratory experiment to evaluate the effect of supplementing the organ donor registration request with a persuasive message on donation decisions. The informational message provided in the experiment contains information about the additional dollar amount a potential recipient could earn after receiving an organ in the experiment. Results of the experiment indicate that an informational message had a positive impact at the beginning of the experiment, but this treatment effect slowly wore off over time. The results also suggest subjects’ donation decisions in the experiment were highly associated with their donor registration status in real life. Subjects who are registered donors in real life were more likely to register in the experiment than those who are not donors, while this gap was perfectly closed when the informational message was introduced. Subjects who are not donors in real life were 17% more likely to register as a donor in the experiment when they were provided with the message.

Neural Predictors of Message Effectiveness during Counterarguing in Antidrug Campaigns

A substantial amount of research has focused on predicting the effectiveness of persuasive messages. However, characteristics of both the message itself and its receiver can impact theoretically predicted effects. For example, recent work published in this journal demonstrated that issue involvement modulates the relationship between message sensation value (MSV) and argument strength (AS). When exposed to anti-cannabis public service announcements (PSAs), high-drug-risk individuals rate these messages as having low effectiveness regardless of variation in MSV and AS. Accordingly, for high-risk individuals, MSV and AS lose their predictive power in message design; moreover, the all too common use of high MSV, high AS PSAs to dissuade drug use may be ineffective, as high-risk viewers are more likely to engage in counterarguing. In this paper, we use functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate the neural correlates of counterarguing. Subsequently, we employ a brain-as-predictor approach using neural activation and self-report data to predict message effectiveness in two independent samples. We demonstrate that by adding two neural predictors within the middle frontal gyrus and superior temporal gyrus to self-report data, the prediction accuracy of message effectiveness in high-drug-risk individuals during counterarguing can reach, and even surpass, the prediction accuracy for low-drug-risk individuals.

The Nature of Psychological Reactance Revisited: A Meta-Analytic Review

Psychological reactance (Brehm, 1966; Brehm & Brehm, 1981) has been a long-standing topic of interest among scholars studying the design and effects of persuasive messages and campaigns. Yet, until recently, reactance was considered to be a motivational state that could not be measured. Dillard and Shen (2005) argued that reactance can be conceptualized as cognition and affect and made amenable to direct measurement. This article revisits Dillard and Shen's (2005) questions about the nature of psychological reactance and reports a test designed to identify the best fitting model of reactance. A meta-analytic review of reactance research was conducted (K = 20, N = 4,942) and the results were used to test path models representing competing conceptualizations of reactance. The results offer evidence that the intertwined model—in which reactance is modeled as a latent factor with anger and counterarguments serving as indicators—best fit the data.

When sad is better than happy: Negative affect can improve the quality and effectiveness of persuasive messages and social influence strategies

Based on recent affect-cognition theories and research on social influence strategies, four experiments predicted and found that people in negative mood produced higher quality and more effective interpersonal persuasive messages than did people in positive mood. This effect was obtained for messages advocating both popular and unpopular positions (Experiments 1 and 2), and arguments produced in negative mood actually induced greater attitude change in naïve recipients (Experiment 3). Experiment 4 replicated these effects in an interactive situation, and mediational analyses showed that mood influenced processing style, resulting in the production of more concrete and thus more effective messages when in a negative mood. The role of negative affect in information processing and the production of interpersonal influence strategies in particular is discussed, and the implications of these findings for everyday interaction strategies, and for contemporary affect—cognition theorizing are considered.

Developing Successful Communication Strategies: A Test of an Integrated Framework for Effective Communication1

In studies of advertising, many communication strategies have been formulated, but little research has been carried out on the process of deciding what strategy can be used best in a particular situation. In social psychology, models have been developed that specify a number of behavioral determinants. Though communication practitioners often use these models, scientific proof of the effectiveness of persuasive messages based on these models is largely absent. In this study, knowledge from advertising studies and social psychology is combined in an integrated framework for effective communication. In an experiment on chocolate-bar buying behavior, we prove that by making use of this framework, we can predict which advertising strategy is the most effective.

The Effectiveness of Persuasive Messages: Comparing Traditional and Computerized Texts

that have been written to argue a point, alter their conceptions, or cause them to act (Murphy, 1998). Whether in a textbook, class lesson, or online text, these materials have the potential to persuade or modify students' understanding of particular topics. Like learning, persuasion is an interactive process through which a given message alters an individual's understanding (e.g., knowledge or beliefs). As such, most would agree that persuasion is present in the classroom. Technology is also a significant force in classrooms. According to data compiled for the National Center for Education Statistics (Williams, 2000), nearly 100 percent of public schools in the United States have computers. Of these, 95 percent are connected to the Internet and 63 percent have instructional rooms with Internet access. Because the

Noncompliance with Persuasive Appeals for a Prosocial, Altruistic Act: Blood Donating1

Effects of persuasive messages, responsibility denial (RD), and attitude‐accessing on blood‐giving attitudes, intentions, moral obligations, and behavior were examined. In Study 1, participants (n= 84) who heard a message emphasizing moral reasons for donating indicated a more favorable postmessage attitude and stronger moral obligation to donate than participants exposed to a message aimed at reducing fear, a combined moral and fear‐ reduction message, or no message. Combined message participants showed greatest intent to donate, yet only 14% of all participants attended a campus drive. In Study 2, low (n= 52) and high (n= 60) RD individuals heard the message arguments and were asked to access their attitudes. Low compared to high RD individuals stated a stronger sense of moral obligation, particularly when they accessed their thoughts relevant to blood donating, and behavioral intention, especially in the combined message condition. Few participants attended a blood drive (12.5%), yet most were low RD individuals from the nonaccessed attitude condition (83%). Results suggest that few individuals will engage in the altruistic act of blood donating, despite the experimental use of persuasive messages and accessing issue‐relevant attitudes.

Fear and Loathing in the Workplace: Reactions to AIDS-Infected Co-workers

The effects of persuasive messages on attitudes toward having an AIDS-infected co-worker are explored. A message addressing the instrumental considerations of interacting with AIDS-infected co-workers produced attitude change only in individuals who did not hold negative attitudes toward homosexuality. To account for these findings, the authors propose that attitudes toward AIDS-related issues can serve both instrumental and symbolic functions. The expression of a negative attitude toward a person infected with AIDS may reflect a response to the possible consequences of interacting with this person or a response to what AIDS symbolizes. For those who hold negatiue attitudes toward homosexuality, AIDS may symbolize homosexual promiscuity and moral decadence. The results are discussed with regard to their relevance for AIDS education programs.