As the United States faces out-of-control spikes from Covid-19, with people refusing to take recommended, often even mandated, precautions, our public health announcements from governments,. Using a within-subjects design and asking participants about their fear responses before, during, and after viewing a message about colorectal cancer screening using, Dillard et al. Careers. It holds that a fear appeal argument initiates a cognitive assessment process that considers the severity of the threatened event, the probability of the occurrence of the event, and the efficacy of a recommended behavior response. In Public Health's Response to Covid, Fear Tactics Are a Misstep Moreover, it might be best directed toward individuals who are known and for whom the recommendations apply appropriately, rather than an ambiguous population. a mask. Through its divisions in 54 subfields of psychology and affiliations with 60 state, territorial and Canadian provincial associations, APA works to advance the creation, communication and application of psychological knowledge to benefit society and improve people's lives. In such situations, they might also criticize the nature of the message and then use self-justification for not modifying their attitudes and behavior; especially, if they discuss the fear appeals with others (Goldenbeld, Twisk, & Houwing, 2007). For generations of health educators, public health campaigns around health issues emphasized positive messages and highlighted . There is growing evidence in multiple media contexts, including health messages (e.g., Dunlop, Wakefield, & Kashima, 2010) that the emotionality of media messages, regardless of valence, is associated with their diffusing through social networks. However, a moderate amount of fear could be just enough to motivate more adaptive actions to neutralize the threat. They found fear appeals to be effective, especially when they contained recommendations for one-time only (versus repeated) behaviors and if the targeted audience included a larger percentage of women. Fear appeals are persuasive messages that emphasize the potential danger and harm that will befall individuals if they do not adopt the messages recommendations. Jakovljevic M, Jakovljevic I, Bjedov S, Mustac F. Psychiatr Danub. In a similar analysis, messages that included severity (d = .23) or susceptibility (d = .43) or both (d = .39) had stronger effects on outcomes than messages that did not include these threat components (d = .12). Using Communication Theory for Health Promotion: Practical - JSTOR It's the meaning we attach to them and the way we act on behalf of them. Generally, the findings reveal that fear appeals do work; however, more specific results were also discovered (Tannenbaum et al, 2015). APA 2023 registration is now open! They can also sometimes be found through online scholarly search engines, such as Google Scholar, PubMed, or the American Psychological Associations PsycNET website. This is a critical because if audiences stop paying attention to a fear appeal after the presentation of the threat, they may miss out on the efficacy information that is critical to a fear-based messages success. However, trait anxiety has been linked to other outcomes of fear appeals. Would you like email updates of new search results? Clipboard, Search History, and several other advanced features are temporarily unavailable. Arne hmans chapter on fear and anxiety in the third edition of the Handbook of Emotions provides a helpful overview of the biological and psychological underpinnings of the study of fear and its influence on cognition and behavior. 2022 Oct 10;17(10):e0275854. Describe the "fear appeal" and how it's used in public health messaging We contend that unintended negative outcomes can result from fear appeals that intensify the already complex pandemic and efforts to contain it. Substance cues are used in these types of prevention messages in order to gain and keep attention (Clayton et al., 2017a) and potentially inhibit message rejection when a fear appeal is present (Bailey et al., 2018; Sarge and Gong, 2019). 2022 Nov 1:1-27. doi: 10.1007/s11024-022-09479-4. There is a maximum effective value of fear. In addition to fear appeals that purposefully aim to scare audiences to motivate attitude and behavior change, recent work suggests that fear can be generated by other forms of messages (e.g., news accounts, social media posts, interpersonal conversations) that may influence receivers approaches to health issues. 8600 Rockville Pike Hubenschmid L, Helmreich I, Kber G, Gilan D, Frenzel SB, van Dick R, Lieb K. Front Public Health. Copy this link, or click below to email it to a friend. However, fear appeals should not be seen as a panacea because the effect is still small. Fear messages that let the audience know they can perform the recommended behavior or that the behavior will have a positive result are more effective than fear appeal messages without mention of recommended actions. As the field of psychology shifted to emphasize cognition over motivation through the 1960s into the 1970s, the study of fear appeals followed suit, with the theories developed during this timeframe highlighting the cognitions associated with the experience of fear, as well as the link between those cognitions and attitude change. Empirical work is needed, however, to test if and how differences between fear and anxiety manifest themselves across multiple persuasion contexts. These efforts have resulted in a number of theoretical perspectives that still inform modern-day work on the persuasive power of fear and its implications for message design. Undoubtedly, most of us have been exposed to fear appeal campaigns regarding health issues, politics, and traffic and driving safety. Exerting effort may be preferred to doing nothing at all. Coping information One critique of the general study of fear-based persuasive appeals is that such research is typically studied in the lab rather than in real-world contexts in which message exposure and processing are not controlled and discussion of those messages with friends and family is possible. For example, Myrick and Oliver (2015) found that feeling fearful after watching a YouTube public-service announcement about skin cancer was a positive predictor of intentions to share the video with others. Some individuals, known as monitors, tend to experience more anxiety and prefer more, rather than less, information about health threats; whereas blunters instead avoid information related to threats. For example, Nabi (1999) proposed the cognitive-functional model (CFM) to advance the literature on negative emotional appeals generally, including specific predictions regarding the role of fear in mediated persuasion. Understanding Brain Circuits of Fear, Stress, and Anxiety, A message addressing the harmfulness of driving while drunk may have no effect on those who do not drive or drink, Breast cancer messages are typically directed toward women who have a larger personal risk of bodily harm than men (although men may be impacted by their concern for female loved ones), Public service announcements on the lethal dangers of young people going to college without having received a meningitis vaccination, Billboards indicating the harmfulness of sexually transmitted diseases and promoting safe, Videos of terrible accidents due to texting while driving. Health persuasion through emoji: How emoji interacted with information source to predict health behaviors in COVID-19 situation. However, more recent theorizing has returned to a focus on the influence that the emotion of fear itself has on attitude and behavior change. If the threat appraisals are more dominant than the efficacy appraisals, individuals will seek to diminish their aroused fear through maladaptive behaviors, such as denigrating the message source or rationalizing their unhealthy behaviors. At the other end of the age spectrum, there is reason to believe that the elderly may also have unique reactions to fear-evoking messages compared to younger people. As health professionals develop health communication for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), we implore that these communication approaches do not include fear appeals. These include distrust in public health authorities, skepticism of health messaging, a lack of uptake in recommended behaviors, and a plethora of other unintended consequences. The recently advanced emotional flow perspective (Nabi, 2015; Nabi & Green, 2015) builds on this recognition by arguing that messages, including fear appeals, evoke multiple emotions in sequence as the contents of the messages unfold. Witte and Allen (2000), in their meta-analysis, did not find a significant relationship between trait anxiety and post-message attitudes, intentions, or behaviors. They looked at 127 research articles representing 248 independent samples and over 27,000 individuals from experiments conducted between 1962 and 2014. Thus, it may be that blunters may respond better to shorter, more direct fear appeals whereas monitors may be more willing to engage with longer or more detailed fear-inducing messages. Further, blunters were significantly more likely to actually obtain a mammogram in response to the more direct messages. One trait variable that has been studied for its contribution to fear arousal is trait anxiety, or the dispositional tendency toward experiencing anxiety and worry across situations. The EFM then predicts that once an emotion is experienced, emotion-consistent information will be made accessible from memory. Fear appeal is a typical marketing strategy that aims to affect behavior by inducing anxiety in individuals who are exposed to a frightening message. This paper provides an insight into the use of fear appeals to communicate a public health message. Fear Appeals in Health Promotions: An Analysis of - Studentshare The term fear is reserved for referencing the emotion experienced by audiences in response to fear appeal messages. To aid health professionals in redirecting away from the use of fear appeals, we offer a phased approach to creating health communication messages during the COVID-19 crisis. For example, after viewing fear appeal messages on drinking and driving, some people who drink and drive may respond by claiming that their drinking does not affect their driving skills, and thus the message does not apply to them. Maslows so-called "hierarchy of needs"is often presented as a five-level pyramid where the bottom four levels are "deficiency needs.". However, the resources listed below are helpful places to start exploring these topics as they are addressed in the academic literature. Advancing psychology to benefit society and improve lives. More recently, scholars have adopted a more nuanced approach, noting that messages that include both threat components and efficacy components, and thus are well-categorized as fear appeals, can evoke other emotions in addition to fear and that these other emotions have unique influence on persuasive outcomes. Thus, the model proved unhelpful for both predicting responses to fear appeals as well as to fear appeal message design. Which can you control and which can you not? We are in the "closing arguments phase" of the local election campaign, deputy political editor Sam Coates says. Still, the CFM introduces the notion that the emotion of fear influences how carefully persuasive messages are processed, which in turn has implications for the direction and endurance of persuasive effect. "One is seats, one is . This site needs JavaScript to work properly. Multiple studies have supported the predictive power of the emotions-as-frames perspective, demonstrating not only that different emotion frames lead to different ways of viewing problems and preferred solutions but also that emotion is an important mediator of that process (e.g., Khne & Schemer, 2015). These appeals are effective at changing attitudes, intentions and behaviors. Maddux and Rogers (1983) argued that individuals who were high in both threat and efficacy perceptions would be motivated to protect themselves from the threat at hand and therefore the most likely to engage in adaptive, danger-control behaviors. To aid health professionals in redirecting away from the use of fear appeals, we offer a phased approach to creating health communication messages during the COVID-19 crisis. You could not be signed in, please check and try again. Care, however, should be taken not to stigmatize or exhibit bias regarding the audience; doing so could possibly backfire. Schweinhart A, Arambur C, Bauer R, Simons-Rudolph A, Atwood K, Luseno WK. The protection motivation theory (Maddux & Rogers, 1983; Rogers, 1975) elaborated on the danger-control branch of the PPM, explicating four different cognitive reactions to fear appeals. The social scientific study of fear in persuasive messages traces back to Carl Hovlands research program in the 1950s, which incorporated the persuasive influence of fear among other questions of attitude change and message design. For the 71 studies in their sample that reported perceived fear, the meta-analysis revealed that treatment groups reported greater perceived fear than comparison groups, d = 1.00. Fear appeals obviously aren't limited to comets. That is, too little fear or too much fear would push individuals toward maladaptive behaviors that quickly reduce the aversive state, such as problem minimization or source derogation, without offering true protection from the threat. A second more general approach to considering the influence of discrete emotions, including fear, on persuasive outcome is the emotions-as-frames perspective, which argues that an audience members emotional state provides a lens through which individuals pay attention to and process message information (Nabi, 2003). Fear appeals are a form of persuasive communication. How can we better frame COVID-19 public health messages? Fear appeals motivate attitude, intention, and behaviour changesespecially fear appeals accompanied by high-efficacy messages. If fear appeal messages are defined or identified based primarily on their ability to elicit fear, message design elements and message response become conflated, which interferes with gaining insight into the message components responsible for generating the desired fear response (OKeefe, 2003). (2015) calculated an average weighted effect size comparing groups exposed to moderate fear versus those exposed to high depicted fear. The fear-as-acquired drive model (often referred to as the drive model) argues that stimuli that evoke fear result in a drive to avoid the unpleasant emotional state (Hovland, Janis, & Kelly, 1953). However, if the curvilinear hypothesis suggested by the drive model were the best model of fear appeal effects, this value would be negative and significant. It generally describes a strategy for motivating people to take a particular action. There are many messages that convey important information about potential harm; however, if the message is to have any effect, it should address issues that instill critical amounts of fear and be targeted to those who are the most susceptible to the risk. Although little attention has been given to how specific personality traits impact reactions to fear appeals, there are good reasons to believe that they matter and should be looked at more carefully in the future. The use of fear in public health campaigns has been controversial for decades. Fear appeal is a term used in psychology, sociology and marketing. HHS Vulnerability Disclosure, Help Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. In essence, different types of audiences with different predispositions are likely to respond differently to fear appeals. Fear appeals that recommend one-time behaviors are more effective than appeals that recommend repeated behaviors. Fear-appeal research has focused almost exclusively on mediated messages. Moreover, they may perceive themselves to be less able to avoid the harms associated with risky health behaviors (Cohn, Macfarlane, Yanez, & Imai, 1995). Fear appeal is a psychological, sociological, and marketing term. public health messages that emphasise the consequences of failing to engage in a particular health behaviour) have two components (1) perceived threat and (2) perceived efficacy. Fear and Understanding in the Time of COVID-19. More than 92 million benzodiazepine prescriptions are yearly dispensed in the US, yet little is known about the experiences of those taking them. These included two perceptions related to the potential threat: severity of the threat and susceptibility to it. Further, of the studies that do measure fear, they tend to do so in very limited ways, typically self-report of emotional arousal in response to the message generally. Unauthorized use of these marks is strictly prohibited. Symbols such as dying people, coffins, gravestones or skulls may be used. Still, meta-analyses across a range of fear- appeal studies have helped clarify the direction and magnitude of fears influence on persuasive outcomes and associated cognitions. However, the conditions under which the emotion of fear and the cognitive perceptions related to threat and efficacy information produce productive persuasive effect remain unclear. The physical expression of fear not only represents the bodys readiness to protect itself, but it also serves a social function by warning others of nearby threats and alerting them that help may be needed. Most crucially, and from a practical standpoint, the controlled laboratory settings and forced message exposure used in many fear appeal studies may not translate to real-world settings. As such, careful attention to both the contexts in which fear appeals are most appropriate for adolescent audiences and how such messages are structured is warranted. Keywords: With a smaller set of studies (between 17 and 33), the authors also analyzed the relationship between fear appeal manipulations in the message content and cognitions. (PDF) How Fear Appeal Approaches in COVID-19 Health - ResearchGate Effects are most apparent in women and for one-time behaviors, says study. There is also the possibility that arousing fear could result in a defensive response or risk denial; particularly, among those who are most susceptible to the threat (Ruiter, Kessels, Peters, & Kok, 2014). A fear appeal, then, can be defined as a message that intends to evoke fear in audiences by demonstrating the existence of a threat and then detailing ways to avoid that threat (Witte, 1994). This journal article, as well as other journal articles, can be found in scholarly databases available via most university libraries. Clearly, fear appeals do not only provoke fear reactions. "These appeals are effective at changing attitudes, intentions and behaviors. Although the lions share of research on the persuasive influence of fear focuses on persuasive advertisements, other media messages may be considered as possible conduits of influence via fear arousal. WASHINGTON Fear-based appeals appear to be effective at influencing attitudes and behaviors, especially among women, according to a comprehensive review of over 50 years of research on the topic, published by the American Psychological Association. It further asserts that the ordering or shifts in emotional states in response to changing message content may be critical to understanding persuasive outcomes. Most notably, Leventhal (1970, 1971) argued that fear appeals evoked two separate but simultaneous processes: an emotional fear control reaction and a primarily cognitive danger-control reaction.