Vignette Methodology Research Articles

Language teachers’ interpersonal learner-directed emotion-regulation strategies

The regulation of language learners’ emotions by affective, or emotion-regulation strategies has received limited research attention. This gap is being filled among others by researchers who have developed and are applying a new research tool called Managing Your Emotions for Language Learning (MYE). It is based on the vignette methodology to investigate both positive and negative language learner emotions, emotion-regulation strategies that language learners employ, and language teachers’ interpersonal learner-directed emotion-regulation strategies used in a range of familiar language learning situations. In this study teachers’ interpersonal emotion-regulation strategies and their learner- and teacher-perceived effectiveness were investigated by means of MYE ( n = 64: English-major learners) and semi-structured interviews with learners ( n = 16) and teachers ( n = 9). The results revealed a rich context- and participant-dependent list of language teachers’ interpersonal emotion-regulation strategies, the frequency of which was perceived differently by language learners and teachers, who, however, agreed on their good effectiveness. The strategies belonging to the categories of ‘cognitive change’, ‘situation modification’ and ‘competence enhancement’ were used the most often, but some gaps in teachers’ strategic repertoires were also identified. Pedagogy-wise, MYE seemed to be suitable for closing the gap between learners’ and teachers’ perspectives on teachers’ learner-directed emotion-regulation strategy use. Teachers and their pedagogical practice would benefit from training in the area of emotion-regulation strategies and support of educational authorities.

Comparing Surgeon Approaches to Patient-Centered Cancer Care Using Vignette Methodology

BackgroundWe sought to characterize surgeon perceptions of patient attachment-related behaviors relative to patient-centered approaches during treatment decision-making within the clinical encounter. MethodsAn online survey including clinical vignettes was sent to board-certified surgeons to assess their approach to patient-centered treatment decision-making. Within these vignettes, patient behaviors associated with attachment styles (secure vs 3 insecure subtypes: avoidant, anxious, and fearful) were fixed and patient factors (age, race, occupation, and gender) were randomized. Analysis included repeated measures mixed-effects linear regression. ResultsAmong the 208 respondents, the majority were male (65.4%) and White/Caucasian (84.5%) with an average age of 51.6 years (SD = 9.9). Most surgeons had been in practice for more than 10 years (66.8%) and treated adult patients (77.4%). Surgical specializations included breast (27.2%), HPB (35.0%), and broad-based/general (21.8%). Patient race, age, and gender did not impact surgeons’ patient-centered approach to treatment decision-making (all ps > 0.05). However, when the “patient” had a white collar occupation and were securely attached, surgeons reported a greater likeliness to spend equal time presenting all treatment options (p = 0.02 and p < 0.001, respectively) and believe the patient wanted an active role in decision-making (p = 0.01 and p < 0.001, respectively). Surgeons reported being least likely to agree with a patient’s treatment decision (p < 0.001) and an increased likelihood of being directive (p = 0.002) when patients exhibited behaviors associated with avoidant attachment. ConclusionAttachment-related behaviors were associated with differences in surgeon approaches to patient-centered decision-making. Attachment styles may offer a framework for providers to understand patient behaviors and needs, thereby providing insight on how to tailor their approach and provide optimal patient-centered care.

Ibis and the city: bogan kitsch and the avian revisualization of Sydney

The Australian White Ibis (Ibis) ( Threskiornis molucca) is one of three endemic Ibis species in Australia. In a short time frame beginning in the 1970s, this species has moved from inland waterways to urban centres along the eastern and southeastern seaboards, Darwin and the Western Australian southwest. Today Ibis are at home in cities across the country, where they thrive on the food waste, water resources and nesting sites supplied by humans. In this article, the authors focus on Sydney to argue that the physical and cultural inroads of Ibis, and the birds’ urban homeliness, are resignifying urban surfaces and the multispecies ecologies in which contemporary Australians operate. They explore how the very physical and sensory presence of Ibis disrupts the assumptions of many urban Australians, and visitors from overseas, that cities are human-centric or human-dominant, non-hybrid assemblages. They also introduce to this discussion of disrupted human expectations a cultural parallel, namely, the recent rise of Ibis in popular culture as an icon-in-the-making of the nation and as a totem of the modern Australian city itself. This trend exemplifies an avian-led revisualization of urban spaces, and is notable for its visual appeals to Ibis kitsch, and to working class or ‘bogan’ sensibilities that assert their place alongside cosmopolitan visions of being Australian. Sometimes kitsch Ibis imagery erupts across the urban landscape, as occurs with many Ibis murals. At other times it infiltrates daily life on clothing, on football club, university and business logos, as tattoos on people’s skin, and as words in daily idiom, confirmed by terms such as ‘picnic pirates’, ‘tip turkeys’ and ‘bin chickens’. The article uses a visual vignette methodology to chart Ibis moves into Sydney and the realms of representation alike, and thus to reveal how new zoöpolitical entanglements are being made in the 21st century.

One moment, please: Can the speed and quality of political contact affect democratic health?

Contact between politicians and their constituents is the cornerstone of democracies globally but an area of scholarship that remains relatively underdeveloped. Political contact can help convey authority, provide legitimacy and facilitate governance. This article goes beyond the assumption that representatives need to communicate more with the public and suggests, instead, that the quality of contact matters. Focusing on four processes by which citizens can contact their representatives (face-to-face, by letter, email or social media), we employ an experimental vignette methodology to test whether the character and timeliness of politicians’ responses to citizen communication affects two indicators of democratic health: (a) the latter’s satisfaction with political contact and (b) their likelihood to re-contact representatives. Our findings provide evidence that personalised communication and to a smaller extent, speed of response, can influence citizen satisfaction and their likelihood of re-engagement. This suggests politicians can improve these indicators of democratic health by adjusting the style of political contact and communication.

Making Things Happen (Un)Expectedly: Interactive Effects of Age, Gender, and Motives on Evaluations of Proactive Behavior

Proactive behavior entails self-starting actions oriented toward change in the future. Other people’s perceptions of an employee’s proactive behavior are likely shaped by personal characteristics of the employee and related expectations. We hypothesized that the intersectionality of age, gender, and two motives (i.e., achievement and benevolence) influences others’ evaluations of proactive behavior. Consistent with the social role theory and the notion of a lack of fit, results of a first experimental vignette methodology study with an employee sample (N = 101; 1818 ratings) showed that proactive behavior was rated as more effective for older men compared to younger men motivated by achievement, whereas proactive behavior was rated as more effective for younger men compared to older men motivated by benevolence. Younger women compared to older women received higher effectiveness ratings for proactive behavior independent of their motive. In a second experimental vignette methodology study with a sample of participants in supervisory roles (N = 164; 1205 ratings), we partially replicated the results of the first study: proactive behavior was rated as more effective for older men compared to younger men motivated by achievement, and proactive behavior was rated as more effective for younger women compared to older women motivated by achievement. In contrast, effectiveness ratings of proactive behavior of younger and older men as well as younger and older women motivated by benevolence did not differ. Overall, by investigating the intersectionality of age, gender, and motives, these findings advance research on influences of person characteristics on others’ evaluations of proactive behavior.

Key person ethical decision-making and substandard drugs rejection intentions

Substandard drugs are a major public health issue worldwide. Key person such as the Qualified Person in China and Europe is responsible for rejecting substandard drugs during the manufacturing stage. This study applies the Hunt-Vitell ethical decision-making model to study their rejection intentions on substandard drugs. Using the experimental vignette methodology, two scenarios were developed to represent different levels of deviation from regulations in pharmaceutical manufacturing. Responses from 204 Chinese key persons show a decline in deontology, ethical judgment, and rejection intention, and an increase in teleology in the minor deviation scenario, in comparison with the major deviation scenario. The results from the two scenarios show that the Hunt-Vitell ethical decision-making model is well fitted to explain substandard drug rejection intentions. Organizational and occupational commitments have a significant positive impact on deontological evaluation. Whereas, occupational commitments have a significant negative impact on teleological evaluation. This study suggests that strengthening occupational commitment can significantly affect key person’s rejection intentions of substandard drugs.

Assessing Provider Bias in General Practitioners' Assessment and Referral of Depressive Patients with Different Migration Backgrounds: Methodological Insights on the Use of a Video-Vignette Study.

Although the prevalence of common mental health conditions such as depression and anxiety, is higher among people with a migration background, these groups are generally underrepresented in all forms of institutionalized mental health care. At the root of this striking discrepancy might be unequal referral by health care practitioners. In this article we describe the development of a quasi-experimental video vignette methodology to assess potential forms of unequal diagnosing, treatment and referral patterns, based on clients' migration background and asylum status. The presented methodology also allows to explore whether potential differences are related to provider bias, i.e. underlying attitudes and expectations held by general practitioners. Potential assets and drawbacks of this methodology are discussed in detail.

Turning a Blind or Critical Eye to Leader Value Breaches: The Role of Value Congruence in Employee Perceptions of Leader Integrity

How do employees react when an organizational leader commits a value breach (i.e., behaves in a way that employees perceive as inconsistent with the organization’s espoused values)? Prior research provides a mixed view: Employees may conclude that the leader lacks integrity, or they may maintain their perception of the leader’s integrity, despite the breach. We focus on the role of person–organization value congruence in determining employee reactions and propose competing predictions that value congruence is positively (“blind eye effect”) or negatively (“critical eye effect”) associated with employee perceptions of leader behavioral integrity following a breach. In Study 1, field survey data suggested that value congruence was positively associated with the perceived integrity of a leader who had committed a breach. However, two follow-up studies using an experimental vignette methodology revealed additional nuance. An integration of our three studies indicated that before the occurrence of any breaches, employees with high value congruence perceive leaders as higher in integrity than do employees with low value congruence (pre-breach sacralization), but when leaders commit one or more value breaches, high value congruence employees react more harshly—lowering their integrity perceptions to a greater extent (the critical eye effect). As a result, as leaders commit more and more breaches, the initially positive relationship between value congruence and perceived leader integrity weakens and eventually becomes negative. Our findings offer important contributions to theory, research, and practice related to organizational values and leadership.

Does political self-disclosure in social media hamper tacit knowledge sharing in the workplace?

PurposeThe purpose of this is to explore recipients’ reactions to co-workers’ political self-disclosure on social media and their willingness to share tacit knowledge with the disclosers. The paper aims to understand whether political self-disclosure with dissimilar value and negative valence hampers tacit knowledge sharing among co-workers in a workplace setting.Design/methodology/approachThis study applies an online survey combined with the experimental vignette methodology approach to collect respondent data. Further, the study uses the partial least squares-structural equation modelling method to analyse the 144 collected responses.FindingsThis study suggests that perceived content negativity towards co-workers’ political self-disclosure has a weak and significant indirect effect on recipients’ willingness to share tacit knowledge, and that perceived value dissimilarity has an insignificant indirect effect on recipients’ willingness to share tacit knowledge.Research limitations/implicationsThis study is a cross-sectional research that was conducted at a public organisation, with a limited number of samples and non-probabilistic sampling method. Thus, the results of this study may be subject to bias, and the generalizability of the findings should be taken into consideration.Practical implicationsAlthough this study shows that political self-disclosure does not likely affect tacit knowledge sharing, senior management of an organisation is encouraged to educate their employees about the potential consequences of self-political disclosure embedded in information employees post in social media. The posted information may attract positive or negative perceptions from the recipient to the discloser. Therefore employees are expected to use social media properly and minimise the possibility of posting something that might trigger a negative perception or emotion from their co-workers.Originality/valueSharing topics related to political self-disclosure on social media potentially hampers tacit knowledge sharing in organisations and is relatively rare in the knowledge management literature. In particular, the existing literature bases its studies on private sector organisations. Furthermore, the empirical evidence of this study is based on an Indonesian public sector organisation, which is also relatively rare in the literature.

Investigating language learners’ emotion-regulation strategies with the help of the vignette methodology

The emotions experienced and the emotion-regulation strategies (ERS) used by English majors (freshmen and sophomores; L1 Polish; n = 133) enrolled in a Polish university in relation to their learning of English or another foreign language were investigated. The primary data collection tool was a new scenario-based questionnaire (Managing Your Emotions for Language Learning [MYE]) which uses the vignette methodology. Participants responded to nine scenarios typical of classroom language learning (LL) by specifying what emotions they would experience and what ERS they would use to increase positive and handle negative emotions. They also listed the ERS they had actually used and reported on their effectiveness. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with selected learner participants (n = 16) and their teachers (n = 9). It was found that the scenarios were realistic and that participants experienced a range of positive and negative emotions, sometimes simultaneously. A comprehensive list of ERS for LL was established informed by but more nuanced than previous taxonomies. The choice of ERS seemed to depend on specific situations, the learning context and participant characteristics. Both learner and teacher participants considered learners’ ERS effective. The validity of MYE has been established and its potential pedagogic use was put forward.

The role of logical consequences in adolescents’ cognitive precursors of compliance and internalization

It is well established that parents’ responses to adolescents’ transgressions play a role in adolescents’ future compliance and internalization process. However, research has yet to reach a consensus on the effectiveness of several specific authority exertion strategies. One of these strategies, which theoretically holds the potential to foster both compliance and internalization, is parental use of logical consequences. Using an experimental vignette methodology and a sample of 214 adolescents (Mage = 15.28 years), the current study compared the effects of logical consequences with classical authority exertion strategies (mild punishments, reasoning, and no authority exertion). Results showed that adolescents held favorable perceptions regarding logical consequences; they rated logical consequences as the most acceptable and, on an equal footing with mild punishments, the most effective strategy to elicit future compliance. Furthermore, whereas older adolescents did not generally anticipate that their reasons to comply would vary as a function of parents’ choice of authority exertion strategies, younger adolescents anticipated that they would comply for more well-internalized reasons in response to logical consequences compared with mild punishments. Implications of these findings for the promotion of optimal parenting and future research directions are discussed.

Followers\u2019 HEXACO personality traits and preference for charismatic, relationship-oriented, and task-oriented leadership

The aim of the current study was to examine the HEXACO personality traits in relation to followers’ preference for charismatic, relationship-oriented, and task-oriented leadership. Based on the similarity perspective, we expected followers high on Honesty-Humility, Extraversion, and Openness to Experience to prefer a charismatic leader, and those followers high on conscientiousness and low on Openness to Experience to prefer a task-oriented leader. In addition, from a need fulfillment perspective, we expected followers high on Emotionality to prefer a task- and a relationship-oriented leader. We examined these expectations using paper vignette methodology in a sample of 272 undergraduates. The results showed that most participants preferred a relationship-oriented leader over a charismatic or task-oriented leader. In addition, we found support for all our hypotheses, with the exception of the relations between Honesty-Humility and preference for charismatic leadership, and Conscientiousness and preference for task-oriented leadership. Our findings contribute to the nomological network of the role of follower characteristics in the leader-follower relationship. Implications and suggestions for research on charismatic leadership are provided.

Daily and long-term consequences of support seeking in Chinese couples: Between-person differences and within-person processes.

It is widely accepted that support-seeking behaviour is culture-specific, such that Asians are less likely to seek support when stressed compared with Westerners. However, mounting evidence is based on the vignette methodology or the cross-sectional survey and utilised students sample. Little is known about how such behaviour manifests in real life and incurs relational consequences. Moreover, psychological theories predict both differences in support-seeking behaviour between persons and the variability of such behaviour within persons. The current study aims to explore between-and within-person associations between support seeking and relationship satisfaction in Chinese couples. Eighty-four Chinese couples reported their daily stressors, support seeking behaviour, and relationship satisfaction every evening for 7 days and overall relationship satisfaction before the diary study and 1 year later. We found that support seeking matters in Asian couples: On days when couples sought more support, they would be more satisfied with their relationship. Notably, no negative associations between couples' own support seeking and partners' relationship satisfaction were found. This study advances our understanding of general and temporal support-seeking processes in Asian couples in the course of everyday life and over time. Results entail important theoretical and practical implications.

Variations in Investment Advice Provision: A Study of Financial Advisors of Millionaire Investors

We analyse portfolio recommendations and judgements about the investment knowledge and control of fictitious but plausible millionaire clients made by a panel of professional investment advisors. Using the vignette methodology in which we describe millionaire investors in pen portraits, we exactly control the information set given to each advisor about the would-be clients. Investor characteristics contribute to the portfolio recommendations in ways broadly in line with expectations. However advisor characteristics are at least as important. Experienced advisors and those with wealthier clients recommend higher risk portfolios, as do the very youngest category of advisors. Unmeasured advisor variables drive both judgements made about clients and the recommendations made. Female clients are judged to be less knowledgeable and less in control than equivalent male investors yet both genders receive the same investment advice. We conclude that millionaire investors receive very different investment advice depending on who their advisor is. These findings have relevance to the wealth management industry and financial market regulators who monitor advisor activities.

Exclusion Criteria in Experimental Philosophy

When experimental philosophers carry out studies on thought experiments, some participants are excluded based on certain exclusion criteria, mirroring standard social science vignette methodology. This involves excluding people that do not pay attention or who miscomprehend the scenario presented in thought experiments. However, experimental philosophy studies sometimes exclude an alarmingly high number of participants. We argue that this threatens the external and internal validity of the conclusions being drawn and we show how a simple visualization of thought experiments can reduce exclusion rates significantly. Furthermore, we argue that focus should not merely be on how many are excluded, but also why they are excluded, and we highlight the role of comprehension questions in this regard. Philosophical thought experiments often rely on the acceptance of certain key premises that may be regarded contestable, and asking comprehension questions involving such key assumptions could be problematic as that may result in some participants being inadvertently excluded from the study, potentially creating a selection bias.

An Educational Intervention for Acute Dizziness Care: A Randomized, Vignette-based Study

Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV) is a common cause of acute dizziness. Strong evidence exists for diagnosing BPPV using the Dix-Hallpike Test (DHT) and treating it with the canalith repositioning maneuver (CRM). Despite this, both are infrequently used in the emergency department (ED). As an early method to evaluate a BPPV-focused educational intervention, we evaluated whether an educational intervention improved ED provider performance on hypothetical stroke and BPPV cases delivered by vignette. A randomized, controlled, educational intervention study in ED physicians. The intervention aimed to promote the appropriate use of the DHT and CRM. A BPPV vignette, a stroke-dizziness (safety) vignette, and vignette scoring schemes (higher scores indicating more optimal care) used previously established vignette methodology. We recruited participants at the exhibitor hall of an emergency medicine annual meeting. We recruited 48 emergency physicians. All were board certified or residency trained and board eligible. All were engaged in the active practice of emergency medicine. None were trainees. Intervention group: a narrated, educational presentation by computer followed by the clinical vignettes. Received no educational intervention and completed the clinical vignettes-intended to mirror current clinician practice. Primary endpoint: total score (out of 200 points) on a vignette-based scoring instrument assessing the performance of history, physical, and diagnostic testing on hypothetical stroke and BPPV cases. The efficacy threshold was crossed at the interim analysis. The intervention group had higher performance scores compared with controls (113.2 versus 68.6, p < 0.00001). BPPV and safety subscores were both significantly higher in the intervention group. Sixty-two percent of the intervention group planned to use the DHT versus 29% of controls. After the vignette described characteristic BPPV nystagmus, 100% of the intervention group planned to use the CRM versus 17% of controls. The educational intervention increased provider performance in dizziness vignettes, including more frequent appropriate use of the DHT/CRM. These findings indicate the intervention positively influenced planned behavior. Future work is needed to implement and evaluate this intervention in clinical practice.

How innuendo shapes impressions of task and intimacy groups

Moving in and out of voluntary groups is an important feature of our social lives. We integrated theory on the functional benefits of group membership with a process termed the innuendo effect (Kervyn et al., 2012) to test how the absence of warmth or competence information shapes desire for group membership. Across three studies (Study 1a, N = 185; Study 1b, N = 359; Study 2, N = 429), we used an experimental vignette methodology in which people were randomly assigned to read descriptions that either emphasized an affiliation (i.e., intimacy group) or achievement (i.e., task group) context, and then subsequently emphasized a group's warmth, competence, or generally positive characteristics (i.e., control condition). For evaluations of both intimacy and task groups relative to a control condition, groups were perceived to lack warmth when described as highly competent, and groups were perceived to lack competence when described as highly warm. Though the direct effect of using innuendo on desire to join produced mixed results across studies, the mediation analyses in Studies 1b and 2 show that providing positive information about a group's warmth or competence, but omitting the contextually salient dimension of social perception (i.e., omission of warmth for intimacy groups and competence for task groups), indirectly weakened people's desire to join the group. Overall, this suggests that the innuendo effect generalizes to judgments of voluntary small groups, highlighting that failing to provide information about one of the dimensions of social perception (i.e., warmth or competence) can promote less favorable evaluations on that omitted dimension – even when descriptions contain wholly positive information.

Experimental Philosophy, Ethnomethodology, and Intentional Action: A Textual Analysis of the Knobe Effect

In “Intentional action and side-effects in ordinary language” (2003), Joshua Knobe reported an asymmetry in test subjects’ responses to a question about intentionality: subjects are more likely to judge that a side effect of an agent’s intended action is intentional if they think the side effect is morally bad than if they think it is morally good. This result has been taken to suggest that the concept of intentionality is an inherently moral concept. In this paper, we draw attention to the fact that Knobe’s original interpretation of the results is based on an abstract rendering of the central scenario (the Chairman scenario) that is significantly different from the vignettes presented to the survey participants. In particular, the experimental vignettes involve temporal and social dimensions; they portray sequences of social actions involving an agent and an interlocutor, rather than a lone agent making a momentary decision in light of certain attitudes. Through textual analyses of a set of vignettes used to study the Knobe effect, drawing on ethnomethodology, conversation analysis, and discursive psychology, we show that there are many differences between the experimental conditions besides the moral valence of the side effect. In light of our textual analyses, we discuss vignette methodology in experimental philosophy and suggest an alternative interpretation of Knobe’s original experimental results. We also argue that experimental philosophy could benefit from considering research on naturally occurring social interaction as an alternative source of empirical findings for discussions of folk-psychological concepts.

Military Leaders' Leadership Styles and Subordinates Hardiness Level: Can Transformational and Transactional Leadership Influence Soldier’s Hardiness?

In comparison with the western military setting, the absence of the study of leadership styles and personality hardiness in the Malaysian Army (MA) has been noticeable. Personality hardiness of the soldiers', and whether military transformational and transactional leadership provides a significant impact on soldier's hardiness level, is critical in a modern military environment in facing many unique challenges, due to the increase of forward deployment rate. As such, the present study examines the proposition that the military leader's leadership styles could enhance military subordinate's hardiness level, as conceptually suggested by previous research. This is employed via the use of an investigation of Experimental Vignette Methodology (EVM); pre-test and post-test collected data on soldiers' hardiness level, with the intervention of leadership paper vignettes which involved 169 participants for Experiment 1; (transformational leadership), and 143 participants for Experiment 2; (transactional leadership). Additionally, MLQ Form 6S was employed for transformational and transactional leadership, while DRS 15 was utilized to measure the hardiness level. The results from the two experiments found that transformational leadership significantly affected subordinate military hardiness, while transactional leadership had no influence on hardiness. Finally, the implications of the present findings are assumed to further facilitate further hardiness research in the Malaysian Army, with regards to subordinate’s commitment and performance.

Responses to persuasive messages encouraging professional help seeking for depression: comparison between individuals with and without psychological distress

BackgroundThe persuasive effect of health messages can depend on message features, audience characteristics, and target behaviors. The objective of this study was to compare the responses to persuasive messages encouraging professional help seeking for depression between individuals with and without psychological distress.MethodsA cross-sectional web-based survey was conducted on Japanese adults aged 35–45 years, who randomly received one of three persuasive messages that aimed to promote help-seeking intentions for depression. The primary message statements were as follows: (1) depression can happen to anyone, (2) depression needs treatment, and (3) depression improves with treatment. Participants rated the messages in terms of comprehensibility, persuasiveness, emotional response, and intended future use. Help-seeking intention for depression was measured using vignette methodology before and after exposure to the messages. Eligible participants who had not received medical treatment for their mental disorders were classified as either distressed (K6 score ≥ 5, N = 824) or non-distressed (K6 score < 5, N = 1133) and analyzed.ResultsNo significant differences in comprehensibility or persuasiveness scores were observed between the messages, but the distressed group had significantly lower scores than the non-distressed group. Negative emotional responses such as surprise, anger, fear, sadness, guilt, and anxiety were significantly stronger when reading message 2, while a positive emotional response such as happiness was significantly stronger when reading message 3. These emotional responses were more prominent in the distressed than in the non-distressed group. After reading messages 1, 2, and 3, the proportions of participants in the distressed group who reported having a positive help-seeking intention increased by 35.1%, 32.1%, and 27.7%, respectively, and by 6.4%, 17.3%, and 15.2%, respectively in the non-distressed group. Multiple logistic regression analysis among participants having no help-seeking intention before exposure to the messages showed that message 2 had a significantly greater effect of increasing help-seeking intentions in the non-distressed group.ConclusionThe exposure to persuasive messages may promote help-seeking intentions for depression. It seems likely that loss framing will work better than neutral and gain framing. Meanwhile, the responses to persuasive messages may differ to some extent between distressed and non-distressed individuals, as individuals with psychological distress are likely to be more susceptible to persuasive messages than those without.Trial registrationNot applicable; this is not a report of intervention trial.