Persuasive Messages Research Articles

Toward Win-win Message Strategies: The Effects of Persuasive Message Content on Retweet Counts During Natural Hazard Events

AbstractMessage diffusion and message persuasion are two important aspects of success for official risk messages about hazards. Message diffusion enables more people to receive lifesaving messages, and message persuasion motivates them to take protective actions. This study helps to identify win-win message strategies by investigating how an under-examined factor, message content that is theoretically important to message persuasion, influences message diffusion for official risk messages about heat hazards on Twitter. Using multilevel negative binomial regression models, the respective and cumulative effects of four persuasive message factors, hazard intensity, health risk susceptibility, health impact, and response instruction on retweet counts were analyzed using a dataset of heat-related tweets issued by U.S. National Weather Service accounts. Two subsets of heat-related tweets were also analyzed: 1) heat warning tweets about current or anticipated extreme heat events and 2) tweets about non-extreme heat events. This study found that heat-related tweets that mentioned more types of persuasive message factors were retweeted more frequently, and so were two subtypes of heat-related tweets. Mentions of hazard intensity also consistently predicted increased retweet counts. Mentions of health impacts positively influenced message diffusion for heat-related tweets and tweets about non-extreme heat events. Mentions of health risk susceptibility and response instructions positively predicted retweet counts for tweets about non-extreme heat events and tweets about official extreme heat warnings respectively. In the context of natural hazards, this research informs practitioners with evidence-based message strategies to increase message diffusion on social media. Such strategies also have the potential to improve message persuasion.

We're all in this together, but for different reasons: Social values and social actions that affect COVID-19 preventative behaviors

We examined how personal values, beliefs and concerns about COVID-19, and socio-demographics, relate to two important COVID-19 preventative behaviors: willingness to get vaccinated for COVID-19 and social distancing, in 1413 Australian adults. As expected, social focus values influenced the extent of compliance with these preventative behaviors, even when controlling for beliefs and concerns about COVID-19 and socio-demographics. We also examined the persuasiveness of four different value-expressive messages promoting social distancing, in a subsample of 737 Australian adults. We found that the message expressing self-transcendence values was ranked most persuasive by 77% of respondents. However, as hypothesized, personal values were related to message persuasiveness. As the importance ascribed to social focus values increased, the likelihood that the self-transcendence message was ranked as most persuasive increased. In contrast, the likelihood that the openness to change message was ranked as most persuasive increased for those who ascribed lesser importance to social focus values. Our findings can help the framing of government messaging around preventative behaviors, including maintaining social distancing in vaccinated populations who may still spread the disease, and preventing COVID-19 spread by or to vaccine refusers.

Utilizing Framing Theory to Design More Effective Health Messages about Tanning Behavior among College Women

ABSTRACT Rates of skin cancer among young women are increasing and most cases are associated with tanning behavior. In health communication, scholars and practitioners use framing as a strategy to design persuasive messages. In this experiment, we advance framing research by testing a serial model of framing theory in the context of outdoor tanning behavior among collegiate women. We designed two message frames, language difficulty, and message relevance, to target accessibility and applicability, two mechanisms within framing theory. We deployed these frames in a 2 × 2 experimental design and found that message frames that promoted accessibility and applicability significantly increased perceptions of severity, susceptibility, and reduced behavioral intentions to tan. Our results support framing theory and provide practical implications for message designers who use frames to inform and persuade.

The Disney ‘Princess Bubble’ as a Cultural Influencer

The Disney ‘Princess Bubble’ as a Cultural Influencer

A meta-analysis of the impact of point of view on narrative processing and persuasion in health messaging

Objective To synthesize experimental research on the impact of narrative point of view (POV) on message processing and persuasion outcomes in health promotion. Moderators examined included characteristics of study design, participants, and experimental stimuli. Design and Main Outcome Measures Random effects model meta-analysis of 16 health promotion experiments, using the metafor package in R. Studies included compared the effects of first- and third-person POV on risk perceptions, attitudes, behavioral intention, identification and transportation. Results There was no evidence of publication bias. Narratives told in the first-person POV led to higher levels of perceived susceptibility (d = 0.10, 95% CI [0.01, 0.20]) and identification feelings (d = 0.10, 95% CI [0.10, 0.21]) than third-person narratives. The effects of first-person POV narratives were significantly stronger for stories that were written in the past-tense and that depicted the protagonist as being similar to message recipients. Conclusion Findings support a theoretical model of POV impact in which a first-person perspective increases identification with the character, thereby leading to higher levels of perceived susceptibility to the health threat. The practical implication is that the effectiveness of narrative persuasion is enhanced by using the first-person point of view, emphasizing target audience-protagonist similarities, and telling stories in the past tense.

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.

Campaigning for the greater good? – How persuasive messages affect the evaluation of contact tracing apps

ABSTRACT The underlying scenario for adopting Covid-19 contact tracing apps is complex, given that users face potential surveillance, while expected health benefits are for the greater societal good rather than for themselves. To encourage adoption, many governments employ persuasive messages, highlighting either the app’s potential societal benefits (e.g., protecting the elderly) or high privacy standards. Responding to public media criticism, we compare the impact of two different persuasive messages, which focus on either societal benefits or privacy assurance. Emphasising societal benefits successfully stimulates this decision making without users losing sight of privacy risks. In contrast, emphasising privacy assurance diminishes users’ societal welfare concerns, as potential personal gains and losses largely frame their decision. These results are critical for developing and launching tracing apps, also beyond Covid-19, as well as for other applications of which widespread adoption is imperative to unlock potential societal level benefits, while requiring individual disclosure of sensitive data.

DELIVERING MESSAGES THROUGH COMIC STRIP AS LEARNING MEDIA: An Analysis of Message Forms

Communication is an activity that cannot be stopped in human life. Especially during the Covid -19 pandemic, face-to-face communication is difficult. This is also quite influential in the world of education where during the Covid -19 pandemic there were many face-to-face meetings between lecturers and students through virtual face to face. In the learning process, sometimes students are embarrassed or reluctant to express their opinions. In this study, researchers tried to use comic strip learning media as a medium for conveying opinions from students. This study used qualitative method with data collection obtained from the analysis of the form of messages from comic strip was made by students. The purpose of this study is to determine the types of messages made by students through comic strip media with educational themes. From the data, it shows that 21 comic strips have informative messages, namely 52.5%, and 19 comic strips that have persuasive form messages or 47.5% of the percentage. While the coercive message form shows the number 0. From this study it can be concluded that comic strips can be an alternative learning medium in the process of delivering messages or opinions.

Can Interactive Media Attenuate Psychological Reactance to Health Messages? A Study of the Role Played by User Commenting and Audience Metrics in Persuasion

ABSTRACT Health advocacy messages can generate psychological reactance and lead to message rejection. Could we offset this negative outcome by providing more agency and interactivity to message receivers? Are individuals more likely to be receptive if health campaigns provided them an opportunity to comment on the advocacy messages? Will they be more likely to follow the advocated behavior if a lot of other receivers have expressed approval of those messages, i.e., will they follow the bandwagon and show lesser reactance? We investigated these questions by conducting a 2 (bandwagon cue: strong vs. weak) X 2 (comment action: presence vs. absence) X 2 (message threat: high vs. low) between-subjects experiment (N = 179) with an online health message. Findings suggest that strong bandwagon cues can reduce reactance and improve persuasion by eliciting bandwagon perceptions. Comment action is associated with a strong sense of agency, which positively predicts intention to follow the message recommendation. Technological affordances interact with threat level of the message and with each other in influencing users’ evaluation and acceptance of persuasive health messages.

Live free and die: Expanding the terror management health model for pandemics to account for psychological reactance

AbstractAccording to the terror management health model (TMHM), life‐threatening health conditions have the potential to make people think about death, which triggers anxiety and motivates people to engage in defensive behaviors that may or may not facilitate health. This model has been used to explain health‐defeating reactions to the COVID‐19 pandemic (e.g., intentional nonadherence to mitigation guidelines) and to inform recommendations for current and future public health campaigns. Unfortunately, these recommendations do not account for psychological reactance, an aversive motivational state known to undermine persuasive messages. For this reason, we argue that the TMHM for pandemics is incomplete in its current form and should be expanded to account for reactance processes. We also highlight two reactance‐reducing strategies (inoculation messages and restoration postscripts) that could potentially increase the efficacy of the public health messages proposed by the TMHM for pandemics. We conclude with a discussion of how psychological reactance theory can augment the TMHM more broadly. Overall, we hope to illustrate both the utility and feasibility of considering more than one theoretical approach when designing empirically supported public health messages.

Are We More Reactive to Persuasive Health Messages When They Appear in Our Customized Interfaces? The Role of Sense of Identity and Sense of Control

ABSTRACT Online users today are provided with a variety of customization tools to build their own information environment. A growing number of public health messages reach their target audiences via these digital venues. Given the deeply personal and individualized nature of customized environments, do online users show lesser reactance to persuasive health messages? Or, are they more likely to show reactance because they feel intruded upon? We conducted a 2 (Customization: present vs. absent) × 2 (Message threat: high vs. low) experiment (N = 145) to find out. Data showed that interface customization increases the sense of control and sense of identity among users. Sense of control is positively associated with threat to freedom of action, causing more affective reactance. In contrast, a sense of identity is negatively associated with anger toward the persuasive message. Theoretical and practical implications for online health campaigns are discussed.

Landfill or Recycle? Pro‐Environmental Receptacle Labeling Increases Recycling Contamination

While aggregate recycling rates in developed countries have plateaued in recent years, the contamination rate of recycling streams due to consumers incorrectly recycling items that cannot be recycled has grown rapidly. We propose that this problem may be partially due to persuasive messages, such as pro‐environmental labeling on bins, that encourage recycling, but may lack guidance on how to do so accurately. For example, a number of public garbage receptacles across the United States are labeled “Landfill” instead of “Trash,” encouraging recycling by making the negative impact of garbage more salient. However, this labeling may also lead consumers to incorrectly “recycle” items that cannot be recycled (i.e., overinclusive recycling). Two field studies suggest that pro‐environmental receptacle labeling can lead to overinclusive recycling, and a controlled experiment provides preliminary process evidence involving anticipated emotion from trashing versus recycling. Research opportunities and public policy implications for pro‐environmental messaging are discussed.

Message assertiveness and price discount in prosocial advertising: differences between Americans and Koreans

PurposeProsocial advertisers widely use assertive messages to encourage prosocial attitudes and behaviors, but ironically, assertive messages may cause reactance. By applying cultural theories and the reciprocity principle, this study aims to observe whether consumers’ responses to assertive messages hold across culturally different audiences (Americans vs South Koreans) and different consumption situations (price discount vs no discount).Design/methodology/approachAmerican and Korean participants take part in three experimental studies examining the interactions of nationality, price discounts and assertive messaging for influencing consumer responses, first to a prosocial ad encouraging recycling (Study 1), the second for a campaign requesting donations for disadvantaged children (Study 2) and the third to prosocial messages encouraging water conservation (Study 3).FindingsThe three experiments strongly support the moderating role of price discounts and cultural backgrounds in the persuasiveness of assertive prosocial messages. American consumers generally dislike assertive messages, but feel reciprocal obligations if marketers include price discounts, whereas South Korean consumers accept both assertive and nonassertive messages without resistance, and discounts have no effects on persuasion.Research limitations/implicationsThe findings make two key contributions to the literature and to prosocial advertising practices. First, although many corporations have adopted philanthropic strategies, few researchers have examined how specific consumption contexts determine the effectiveness of prosocial persuasion. The findings show how price discounts and message framing potentially alter the effectiveness of prosocial messages across Eastern and Western cultures. Second, assertive language evokes reactance, but the findings suggest that reactive responses to prosocial advertising are culture-specific.Practical implicationsInternational nonprofit organizations and brands using philanthropic strategies might use the guidelines of this study for tailoring strategic, practical prosocial messages that will appeal to consumers from diverse cultural backgrounds. In particular, pro-environmental and charity campaigns targeting North American or Western European populations may consider bundling discounts into promotions to evoke reciprocity.Originality/valueFindings provide novel implications for social marketers regarding on how to couple message assertiveness and price discounts to maximize the success of prosocial messages in different cultures.

Biases and their impact on opinions of transgender bathroom usage

AbstractThe relationship between personality traits and biased assimilation, evaluating arguments, and persuasive messages more favorably if supporting pre‐existing attitudes, lacks adequate research. Research suggests that higher narcissistic traits are associated with biased reactions. Additionally, research suggests that people with greater scientific reasoning abilities have more biased reactions to information that challenges their attitude, as they more easily locate flaws on topics that oppose their beliefs. Participants (N = 260) completed measures to identify their views on trans bathroom use, as well as other personality and attitude measures. They were randomly assigned to read one of the two articles using fake scientific data that either supported trans people using a bathroom reflecting their gender identity or that they should use a bathroom matching their sex‐assigned at birth. Participants rated the quality of the article significantly higher when their opinion on bathroom use was congruent with the article than when it was incongruent. We used regression analyses with participants' perceptions of the quality of the article as the outcome variable and scientific reasoning scores, narcissism personality index scores, open‐mindedness scores as predictor variables. In the mismatch group, the higher the scores on scientific reasoning, the lower the ratings of the quality of the opinion incongruent article. In the match group, the higher the scores on open‐mindedness, the lower the ratings of the quality of the opinion congruent article. This research suggests that bias reduction is necessary to function in a world where scientific facts are called into question on a consistent basis.

Attitudes Based on Feelings: Fixed or Fleeting?

Researchers and practitioners want to create opinions that stick. Yet whereas some opinions stay fixed, others are as fleeting as the time it takes to report them. In seven longitudinal studies with more than 20,000 individuals, we found that attitudes based more on emotion are relatively fixed. Whether participants evaluated brand-new Christmas gifts or one of 40 brands, the more emotional their opinion, the less it changed over time, particularly if it was positive. In a word-of-mouth linguistic analysis of 75,000 real-world online reviews, we found that the more emotional consumers are in their first review, the more that attitude persists when they express it again even years later. Finally, more emotion-evoking persuasive messages create attitudes that decay less over time, further establishing emotion’s causal effect. These effects persist above and beyond other attitude-strength attributes. Interestingly, we also found that lay individuals generally fail to appreciate the relation between emotionality and attitude stability.

Mobile phone users as pseudo-brokers in clientelism: evidence from Africa

ABSTRACT Despite a vast literature on clientelism, the impact of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) on clientelistic exchanges remains understudied. In order to fill that gap, we examine whether politicians disproportionately direct private transfers to mobile phone users, who can easily share persuasive messages with their communication partners and thus provide cascading benefits. Analyzing data from the fifth wave of the Afrobarometer survey, we find that mobile phone users are indeed more likely to be targeted and that their chances of being targeted decrease as their feeling of being monitored rises. In addition, the attractiveness of mobile phone users is salient only in urban areas, and mobile phone users are more likely to persuade others to vote for a certain politician upon receiving private transfers. We conclude by discussing the implications of these findings regarding the existence of pseudo-brokers and the impact of ICT on the quality of democracy.

Managing intergroup silos to improve patient flow.

Health care managers face the critical challenge of overcoming divisions among the many groups involved in patient care, a problem intensified when patients must flow across multiple settings. Surprisingly, however, the patient flow literature rarely engages with its intergroup dimension. This study explored how managers with responsibility for patient flow understand and approach intergroup divisions and "silo-ing" in health care. We conducted in-depth interviews with 300 purposively sampled senior, middle, and frontline managers across 10 Canadian health jurisdictions. We undertook thematic analysis using sensitizing concepts drawn from the social identity approach. Silos, at multiple levels, were reported in every jurisdiction. The main strategies for ameliorating silos were provision of formal opportunities for staff collaboration, persuasive messages stressing shared values or responsibilities, and structural reorganization to redraw group boundaries. Participants emphasized the benefits of the first two but described structural change as neither necessary nor sufficient for improved collaboration. Silos, though an unavoidable feature of organizational life, can be managed and mitigated. However, a key challenge in redefining groups is that the easiest place to draw boundaries from a social identity perspective may not be the best place from one of system design. Narrowly defined groups forge strong identities more easily, but broader groups facilitate coordination of care by minimizing the number of boundaries patients must traverse. A thoughtfully designed combination of strategies may help to improve intergroup relations and their impact on flow. It may be ideal to foster a "mosaic" identity that affirms group allegiances at multiple levels.

Novelty as a Parameter for Using Arguments in Persuasive Communication

Background: In this paper, a series of studies investigating one of the parameters for effectiveness in relation to using arguments in persuasive communication messages is described: the novelty of arguments.Method: The first study involves the elicitation of arguments, the second study entails the identification of novel arguments, and the third study focuses on the influence of novel versus familiar arguments. The main hypothesis for this series of studies was: Messages with novel, valid and relevant arguments will lead to more attitude change than messages with familiar, valid and relevant arguments.Results: This hypothesis is supported by the data: messages with new, valid and relevant arguments led to more attitude change than messages with familiar, valid and relevant arguments.Discussion: To ensure the central processing of arguments, messages need to be new to the receiver.There is a need for more experimental studies identifying parameters for effectiveness in relation to various behavior change methods.

The Moderating Effects of Perceived Severity on the Generational Gap in Preventive Behaviors during the COVID-19 Pandemic in the U.S.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, older adults appear to be more susceptible to the coronavirus disease. Although the health stakes are higher for older adults, individuals of all ages should adopt preventive measures to contain the human-to-human transmission of the virus. This study conducted a national online survey of 1843 adults at the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S. to examine age disparities in preventive behaviors against the virus. The results show that older generations, motivated by a higher perceived severity of the disease, were more likely to take the precautionary actions recommended by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) than younger generations. This thus suggests that persuasive health messages addressing the severity of COVID-19 might reduce the generational gap and promote preventive behaviors among young people, to protect themselves and the elderly.

The Moderating Role of Self-construal in Culturally Reflected Fear Appeals

Scholars have long investigated fear appeals as a way to improve persuasive messages, yet we still lack understanding regarding the role of cultural orientation in relation to fear appeals. In the current study, we investigate how individual self-construal influences responses to culturally reflected fear appeals in the context of smoking cessation. Using a 2 (reference type: self-reference versus other-reference) x 2 (smoking cessation program: individual program versus group program) experimental design, this study found that self-construal moderates the effects of reference type on perceived threat and perceived threat to freedom. In addition, main effects of self-construal on perceived threat to freedom and self-efficacy are observed. Theoretical and practical implications of findings are discussed.