Online ahead of print. Given that many health-oriented fear appeals have been shown to evoke multiple emotions, including anger, disgust, and sadness, current theorizing has taken a mixed-emotions or emotional flow perspective to provide a deeper understanding of fear appeal effects. For instance, Myrick, Holton, Himelboim, and Love (2016) content analyzed tweets about cancer that included the hashtag #stupidcancer, which is particularly popular with young-adult members of the online cancer community. A researcher searching for literature on fear, fear appeals, or the role of fear in message outcomes will likely find an astounding number books, journal articles, encyclopedia entries, and even essays to examine. Fear alone does not change behavior. Effects of general and corona-specific stressors on mental burden during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in Germany. Thus, it is reasonable to imagine that fear-evoking narrativeswhether in the media or told by parentsare effective vehicles for persuading children, perhaps even more so than didactic fear-based messages. 2020 Summer;32(2):221-228. doi: 10.24869/psyd.2020.221. We are in the "closing arguments phase" of the local election campaign, deputy political editor Sam Coates says. As such, monitors and blunters may respond differently to fear appeal messages. Further, additional perspectives, like the cognitive functional model, ask how messages that evoke emotions other than fear might influence persuasive outcome, with growing attention to the role of specific emotions, such as guilt, anger, and hope. Maslows so-called "hierarchy of needs"is often presented as a five-level pyramid where the bottom four levels are "deficiency needs.". It's frequently used in public health campaigns such as anti-smoking, anti-drunk driving, and hypertension awareness campaigns. 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. The site is secure. 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). Based on the literature and existing theory spanning from children to the elderly, we suggest that though fear-based messages may be useful to address health issues across the lifespan, there are unique challenges to consider for each age group. As such, message components of fear appeals include threat and efficacy. fear appeal has been used when the message producer intended to inform the public about the severe consequences that unhealthy behavior or a disease may induce, thus expressing a causal . After decades of research, it is clear that fear can indeed motivate positive health behaviors and that exposure to information about threat susceptibility, severity, response efficacy, and self-efficacy is key to this process. The victims of a drunk driver.The guy who neglected his cholesterol lying in a morgue with a toe tag.. With new, highly transmissible variants of SARS-CoV-2 now spreading, some health professionals have started calling for the use of similar fear-based strategies to persuade people to . If a person focuses on managing the threat they perceive in the environment, Leventhal argues that danger-control processes are engaged to manage the threat. Thus, the model proved unhelpful for both predicting responses to fear appeals as well as to fear appeal message design. Many studies on the effectiveness of fear appeals have been conducted. Fear is a negatively valenced discrete emotional state that is an inherent part of the human experience. 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. In light of the limitations of previous theorizing, and coinciding with an increased interest in affect and emotion in the psychology literature (Lazarus, 1991), Witte (1992) proposed the extended parallel process model (EPPM). We may learn that certain behaviors we engage in are potentially harmful and have now become fearful; yet, we still engage in the harmful behaviors (Tannenbaum et al., 2015). 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. Still, there is no data indicating that audiences will be worse off from receiving fear appeals in any condition.. In an early test of this model, Janis and Feshbach (1953) examined the connection between fear arousal and the persuasiveness of dental-hygiene messages. They looked at 127 research articles representing 248 independent samples and over 27,000 individuals from experiments conducted between 1962 and 2014. Fear is the ultimate form of emotional baggage. The EPPM represented a merger of the PPM and the PMT, but it also recognized the importance of the emotion of fear itself in understanding message effects. Epub 2020 Mar 26. 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. Nat Med. Cognitively, fear is associated with uncertainty over the likely outcome and ones ability to cope with the current threat, which contributes to the motivation for avoidance and protection (Lazarus, 1991). Most directly relevant, Goodall, Sabo, Cline, and Egbert (2012) conducted a content analysis of print and electronic news coverage of the H1N1 virus from a fear appeal perspective, looking for the appearance of threat and efficacy information within the news coverage. Key elements: statement with values and philosophy related to the problem, description of target population to be served, specific services/intervention to be used and why, statement of desired public image Goal -Long-term direction for the program, overall intent or desired outcomes, written in general terms (no specifics) A fear appeal is a means of persuasion that threatens the audience with a negative, physical . Although the predicted interaction between threat and efficacy appraisals lies at the heart of the EPPM, the full model includes 12 propositions detailing numerous intricate relationships between the different types of cognitions, fear, and message effectiveness (Witte, 1992). However, far more research is needed to confirm this finding and to explore other ways in which monitoring and blunting, and indeed other individual differences, suggest implications for fear-based messaging. As such, adaptive outcomes are likely. A perceived threat has two subcomponents (a) perceived . fear appeal. Repeated exposure could possibly promote complacency among those who see frightening messages but are not directly targeted or do not perceive themselves to be in the target audience. Six children were among the dead after a Russian missile attack on Uman; Russian soldiers are likely being placed in improvised cells consisting of holes in the ground as punishment, the UK's MoD . Undoubtedly, most of us have been exposed to fear appeal campaigns regarding health issues, politics, and traffic and driving safety. As the drive model lost favor, researchers began exploring alternative explanations for why stronger fear appeal messages could lead to greater adaptive responses, while still accounting for the evidence that sometimes, fear appeals lead to maladaptive responses. 2022 Nov 22;10:991292. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2022.991292. However, the participants in this high-fear condition were actually less likely than those who saw milder images about tooth decay to improve their brushing and flossing habits in a post-test one week after exposure to the initial fear appeal. Fear appeal is a term used in psychology, sociology and marketing. 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. This deeper processing in the face of uncertainty occurs, according to the CFM, because the audience member is trying to find some piece of information that might satisfy the fear-induced goal of protection. FOIA A balance between the two perspectives was struck in the 1990s with the introduction of the extended parallel process model (Witte, 1992) in which the evocation of fear from cognitive appraisals of message content was conceptualized as motivating consideration of both response and self-efficacy, the combination of which was predicted to influence attitudinal and behavioral response. As OKeefe (2003) argues, it is important to differentiate between message features and message effects, and if researchers are to gain a deeper understanding of the mechanisms behind fear appeal effects and the specific role that the emotion of fear plays in this process, they need to clearly distinguish not only message features from their psychological effects but also emotional responses from cognitive ones. messages are often used in political, public health, and advertising campaigns in the hopes of reducing risky attitudes, intentions, or behaviors, their use is often a polarizing issue. Moreover, they may perceive themselves to be less able to avoid the harms associated with risky health behaviors (Cohn, Macfarlane, Yanez, & Imai, 1995). Although no new models of fear appeals have specifically been advanced since the EPPM, theorists have considered how a range of emotions, including fear, might generate persuasive effect. While some work suggests age is not a moderator of fear-appeal effects (Witte & Allen, 2000), the role of developmental stages in the processing of and behavioral reactions to fear appeals has yet to be thoroughly or rigorously tested. In this article, we discuss the use of fear appeals during the COVID-19 pandemic and the potential negative sociobehavioral outcomes fear-based messaging may have. 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). Further, blunters were significantly more likely to actually obtain a mammogram in response to the more direct messages. 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. 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. Fear-arousal appeals might be effective for a person with little or no schooling. 8600 Rockville Pike A fear appeal, in health promotion, is when health promoters, trying to inspire change in behavior from high risk to lowered risk, place emphasis of a health message on the use of gruesome fear content or try to arouse fear responses in the audience (Witte, 1992). DOI: 10.1002/ijop.12042, Tannenbaum, M. B., Hepler, J., Zimmerman, R. S., Saul, L., Jacobs, S., Wilson, K., & Albarracin, D. (2015). Shir-Raz Y, Elisha E, Martin B, Ronel N, Guetzkow J. Minerva. eCollection 2022. In an initial test of the model, the predictions that fear promotes less careful message processing relative to anger and uncertainty of message reassurance results in more careful processing that certainty of reassurance were supported. a persuasive message that is designed to alter attitudes by producing fear in the recipient. Tidsskr Nor Laegeforen. While meta-analyses support the claim that on the aggregate, fear-based messages are persuasive, researchers are still working to explain why fear appeals work and for whom they work best and under what conditions. Yet, there is a growing body of literature on the social sharing of emotions that indicates that people have an instinctive need to disclose to others when they experience emotionally charged events, which has been widely documented across cultures, gender, and age groups (Rim, 2009). Participants read news stories designed to evoke either fear or hope about the human papilloma virus (HPV) and with different levels of response efficacy information regarding the impending HPV vaccine. Hope this helps I believe that most current approaches to anxiety fall short because they are predicated on the medical model, which views anxiety as an illness. Book chapters that discuss fears role in communication and media processes and effects also provide helpful overviews of the state of the literature as well as suggestions for future research directions. That is, adolescents may not perceive themselves to be less vulnerable to risk as much as they actually perceive a range of health-threatening behaviors as less risky than they actually are, compared to their adult counterparts. Evidence from a meta-analysis of fear appeals found that appeals targeting female-dominated audiences are more effective than those targeting male audiences, likely because women tend to be more prevention focused in that they are more sensitive to avoiding negative outcomes than to seeking positive outcomes (Tannenbaum et al., 2015). The COVID-19 Pandemic: Making Sense of Rumor and Fear. In short, message consumers emotional states frame how they respond to the rest of the message, which in turn results in emotion-consistent decision-making and action. HHS Vulnerability Disclosure, Help Additionally, Tannenbaum et al. The American Psychological Association, in Washington, D.C., is the largest scientific and professional organization representing psychology in the United States. We encourage public health professionals to reevaluate their desire to use fear appeals in COVID-19 health communication and recommend that evidence-based health communication be utilized to address the needs of a specific community, help people understand what they are being asked to do, explain step-by-step how to complete preventative . Research has continued to rely heavily on the EPPM, and a special issue of the journal Health Communication in 2013 highlighted the contributions of this model to research over the past two decades. Psychological Bulletin, 141, 11781204. Please enable it to take advantage of the complete set of features! However, the resources listed below are helpful places to start exploring these topics as they are addressed in the academic literature. Ultimately, only 2.5% of stories included all four components associated with fear appeals. There are many messages that convey important information about potential harm; however, if the . Answer: Fear appeal is simply a message (most commonly found in advertising) which is intended to bring fear to its audience; They either encourage or discourage their audience from participating in a specific behavior. This research suggests that exposure to health news storiesfear-generating ones in particularcan influence audience health behaviors, but that the traditional fear appeal structure does not always translate to the news context. However, this assumes news stories are processed as fear appeals, which is as yet an open question. Appealing to fear: A Meta-Analysis of fear appeal effectiveness and theories. In discussions of fear appeals and fear appeal effects, it is important to draw the distinction between a message componentsomething inherent to the messagethat may result in a fear response, and the experience of fear itself by the message receiver. Specifically, the CFM predicts that an individual experiencing message-relevant fear who is also uncertain as to whether the rest of the message will contain reassuring information (i.e., it may help alleviate fear, but full exposure is necessary to know for sure) would be most likely to carefully process the message. Further, individual differences have been considered to determine who is most likely to experience fear during and after message consumption. However, more recent theorizing has returned to a focus on the influence that the emotion of fear itself has on attitude and behavior change. 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). Although these are presented in chronological order here, it is important to note that the evolution of fear appeal theorizing reflects a combination of attempts to build on previous theory alongside overarching changes in psychological research that shifted from motivation-based approaches to more cognitively oriented approaches starting in the 1970s (for a review, see Nabi, 2007). More than 92 million benzodiazepine prescriptions are yearly dispensed in the US, yet little is known about the experiences of those taking them. 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. For example, we may learn that taking too much over-the-counter pain medication can cause liver damage; nevertheless, we continue to take more than we should when the pain is great. In light of findings like these, Janis (1967) later argued that the relationship between the elicitation of fear and adoption of the target behavior would be an inverted U-shaped curve. Fear appeals are persuasive messages that emphasize the potential danger and harm that will befall individuals if they do not adopt the messages recommendations. Finally, given the expectation that emotional experience directs information processing and information accessibility, the EFM predicts that decision-making and action will be heavily influenced by these emotion-driven processes. Y ou probably still remember public service ads that scared you: The cigarette smoker with throat cancer. The practice of fear appeals has its warranted critics; especially, if applied unethically. The message is conveyed clearly that if students want to achieve their goals (e.g., getting a good job; gaining entry into college, or graduate/medical/law school), they cannot risk poor or sometimes even average grades. Bookshelf Although it is applied more in the context of news than persuasion, the EFM has the potential to assist in understanding how fear-based messages might generate persuasive influence by emphasizing how emotion-relevant information is more likely to be attended to later in the message and how post-message behaviors are likely to be consistent with emotional motivations. Psychological and behavioral responses to the declaration of COVID-19 as a pandemic: A comparative study of Hong Kong, Singapore, and the U.S. NCI CPTC Antibody Characterization Program. The physical experience of fear is generated by an extensive network of fear-related neural structures in the brain, particularly the amygdala (Lang, Davis, & hman, 2000; hman, 2008). Rooted in appraisal theories of emotions (e.g., Lazarus, 1991), the EFM argues that when a message contains information that is relevant to an emotions core relational theme, or the essential perception that underlies an emotional experience, that particular emotion is aroused. From children and adolescents to young adults, middle-aged individuals, and finally the elderly, using diverse samples with wide age ranges or investing in long-term cohort and longitudinal studies may help reveal potential differences in fear-arousal and fear appeal effects across developmental stage. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Communication, College of Communications, Pennsylvania State University, Department of Communication, University of California, Santa Barbara, Gender (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Studies), Fear As Mental State Versus Message Component, Theories of Fears Influence on Risk Perceptions, Attitudes, and Behavior, Fear Messages and Patient-Provider Communication, Conclusion: Fear Appeals and Message Effects, https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228613.013.266, Fear responses to threat appeals: Functional form, methodological considerations, and correspondence between static and dynamic data, Protection motivation and self-efficacy: A revised theory of fear appeals and attitude change, Brave men and timid women? Since the 1950s, researchers have addressed strategic fear appeal effects, continually refining answers to the questions of when, why, and for whom they are persuasive. Your current browser may not support copying via this button. Fear and Understanding in the Time of COVID-19. 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. Fear appeals are also used in educational settings. Psychiatry for Better World: COVID-19 and Blame Games People Play from Public and Global Metal Health Perspective. They can also sometimes be found through online scholarly search engines, such as Google Scholar, PubMed, or the American Psychological Associations PsycNET website. Register for the early bird rate. The contributors demonstrate the necessity of basing message design decisions on appropriate theories of human behavior and communication effectiveness by synthesizing and integrating knowledge and insights from theory and research in communication and health behavior change. 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. Tannenbaum et al. You will explore the application of fear appeals in health promotion messaging through the examination of a health promotion public service announcement or ad campaign. Indeed, with developmental stages in mind, there is reason to believe that different message structures would be more appropriate for different age groups. PostedSeptember 18, 2018 Despite multiple theoretical perspectives advanced in the literature, no single model decisively captures the conditions of fear appeal effectiveness. Hovland, Janis, and Kelly noted that habituated behaviors can be adaptive in that they target the threat itself and aim to reduce or eliminate it. (2015) also found that studies with messages that included efficacy statements had larger effects (d = .43) than did those that did not include efficacy statements (d = .21), with the outcome being an average weighted effect size encompassing attitudes, intentions, and behaviors. It presents a risk, presents the vulnerability to the risk, and then may, or may not suggest a form of protective action. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. On the other hand, proponents argue that fear appeals positively affect attitudes, intentions, and behaviors, with one meta-analysis reporting an average effect size of d = 0.29 (Tannenbaum et al., 2015 ). However, some evidence suggests a more nuanced picture. With initial exposure to a fear appeal, recipients engage in a threat appraisal. There can be feelings of disgust, anger, anxiety, or guilt. Beginning with the very young, testing the influence of fear-based messages on children is a difficult area of empirical inquiry given the ethical implications of potential psychological trauma. Indeed, Nabi and Prestin (2016) conducted experimental research to examine the influence of the structure of news stories that incorporated fear. It is to this literature we now turn. American Psychological Association. Such research would, in turn, help determine what message structures would be best suited for which age groups and within what health contexts. By the 1990s, Kim Wittes extended parallel process model (EPPM) gained traction, and her 1992 piece in the journal Communication Monographs that first proposes the model is a good place to start understanding this perspective. Additionally, social media provide opportunities not only for social sharing but also for information requests from others, which in turn could improve health outcomes. Further, the threat coverage was frequently sensationalistic, with more than half of stories referring to pandemic, outbreak, or death in ways disproportionate to the actual threat. a fear appeal message is the amount of fear it is intended to arouse in message recipients. Int J Environ Res Public Health. The emotional flow perspective suggests that the threat information results in fear arousal, and the efficacy information is associated with feelings of hope. 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. PLoS One. It generally describes a strategy for motivating people to take a particular action. You could not be signed in, please check and try again. How can peoples attitudes and behavior be changed? How to Stop Your Mind When It Spins Out of Control. Discover the world's . For example, the core relational theme of fear is imminent threat. and transmitted securely. Next, these cognitive perceptions form a feedback loop with fear, as well as interact with each other to either predict protection motivation (which then predicts message acceptance) or defensive motivation (which then predicts message rejection). Finally, though fear appeals may generally be persuasive at an individual level (although, as discussed above, the mechanisms of these effects remain murky, and they may at times backfire), we know far less about the influence of exposure to multiple fear appeals over time. 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). However, there is mixed evidence as to trait anxietys impact on fear appeal effects. Effects are most apparent in women and for one-time behaviors, says study. SSM Popul Health. official website and that any information you provide is encrypted As such, fear is an emotion that frequently attracts the attention of scholars and message designers who hope to persuade audiences to change their behavior in light of potential threats to well-being and public safety. Rather, news stories frequently highlight new health threats for which there are no clear solutions yet, leaving the audience to come up with their own ideas on how to best protect themselves. Visually, the EPPM is represented as a path model whereby the four message components in the external stimuli (i.e., self-efficacy, response efficacy, susceptibility, and severity) predict their related cognitive perceptions. A student interested in the historical roots of fear appeal theorizing could start with seminal pieces from Carl Hovlands Yale research group, including the 1953 book by Hovland, Janis, and Kelly titled Communication and Persuasion: Psychological Studies of Opinion Change, as well as later journal articles reporting empirical data related to fear appeals. found that this dynamic approach offered evidence in support of a curvilinear relationship between fear and persuasion. 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). So, if an audience member appraises a message as representing an imminent threat to her own well-being, she will likely experience fear. Would you like email updates of new search results? 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. If the linear fear-persuasion hypothesis supported by the Mongeau (1998) and Witte and Allen (2000) meta-analyses, were the superior model of fear appeal effects, this value would be positive and significant.
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