Please enable it to take advantage of the complete set of features! 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. More elaborate strategies, such as training people on the skills they will need to succeed in changing behavior, will likely be more effective in most contexts. Multiple book chapters also provide nice overviews of the existing research on the emotion of fear. These behaviors can also, however, be maladaptive if they do not result in behavioral change but instead involve avoiding the topic or becoming defensive toward the message source. However, cautionary tales, which tell the stories of people who ignore the dangers of a forbidden act and suffer as a result, have frequently been used to encourage compliant behavior in children (P. J. Miller & Moore, 1989). Simply frightening people without giving them an effective way to avoid or deal with the situation is not a very influential means for behavioral motivation. Moreover, Richard Lazaruss discussion of fear in his 1991 book Emotion and Adaptation offers a useful overview of the emotion from the perspective of cognitive appraisal theory and social psychology more generally. Yet, little attention has been paid to this issue. 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. So, if an audience member appraises a message as representing an imminent threat to her own well-being, she will likely experience fear. Throughout the history of the study of fear appeals, any message that evoked negative emotion would often be categorized as a fear appeal. The emotion of feara negatively valenced response to a threatis an innate experience, and one that likely evolved from mammalian defense systems (hman, 2008). Exerting effort may be preferred to doing nothing at all. Understanding the personalities of the audience (e.g., the typical characteristics and traits of women in comparison to men, or of adolescents versus young or middle-aged people, or of those who are health conscious versus those who are not) will help in designing a campaign that is better directed toward the targeted individuals. For example, the core relational theme of fear is imminent threat. Some recent studies have examined the structure of health news in ways that speak to the link between emotional arousal, most notably fear, and persuasive outcomes. I believe that most current approaches to anxiety fall short because they are predicated on the medical model, which views anxiety as an illness. (2015) meta-analysis did not examine the relationship between the amount of fear aroused and fear-appeal effects on persuasive outcomes. Thus, in this context, the emphasis is on how existing fear or anxiety may be minimized by the providers communication style rather than the providers communication being the stimulus for fear. 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. An official website of the United States government. Such curvilinear patterns likely result from minimal fear in response to the beginning of a message, stronger fear when an individual sees the threat component of the message, and resolving fear after seeing the efficacy component. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). The meta-analysis did not, however, directly address interactions between the threat and efficacy elements. Researchers now believe anxiety disorders and PTSD are whole brain conditions. Care, however, should be taken not to stigmatize or exhibit bias regarding the audience; doing so could possibly backfire. That is, though significant relationships between fear and persuasion have been identified, meta-analyses have found mixed support for the threat by efficacy interactions predicted by the EPPM (de Hoog, Stroebe, & de Wit, 2007; Witte & Allen, 2000). Preparing for your first therapy session beforehand can help manage anxiety. (2015, October 22). This journal article, as well as other journal articles, can be found in scholarly databases available via most university libraries. Online ahead of print. 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. 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. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0039729. Would you like email updates of new search results? More from Shoba Sreenivasan, Ph.D., and Linda E. Weinberger, Ph.D. Major life events can have significant consequences, yet the gnawing of persistent minor irritations may be more prevalent and harmful. A review of the gender differences in fear and anxiety, A cognitive-functional model for the effects of discrete negative emotions on information processing, attitude change, and recall, Emotional flow in persuasive health messages, The role of a narratives emotional flow in promoting persuasive outcomes, Unrealistic hope and unnecessary fear: Exploring how sensationalistic news stories influence health behavior motivation, A protection motivation theory of fear appeals and attitude change, Appealing to fear: A meta-analysis of fear appeal effectiveness and theories, Matching health messages to monitor-blunter coping styles to motivate screening mammography, Putting the fear back into fear appeals: The extended parallel process model, A meta-analysis of fear appeals: Implications for effective public health campaigns, Examining the influence of trait anxiety/repressionsensitization on individuals reactions to fear appeals, A conceptualization of threat communications and protective health behavior, Risk-perception: Differences between adolescents and adults, The impact of vulnerability to and severity of a health risk on processing and acceptance of fear-arousing communications: A meta-analysis, Pathways to persuasion: Cognitive and experiential responses to health-promoting mass media messages, Effects of false positive and negative arousal feedback on persuasion, Threat, efficacy, and uncertainty in the first 5 months of national print and electronic news coverage of the H1N1 virus, The emotional effects of news frames on information processing and opinion formation, Fear and anxiety: Animal models and human cognitive psychophysiology, Threat appeals and persuasion: Seeking and finding the elusive curvilinear effect, Effects of threatening and reassuring components of fear appeals on physiological and verbal measures of emotion and attitudes, Narrative conjunctions of caregiver and child: A comparative perspective on socialization through stories, Monitoring and blunting: Validation of a questionnaire to assess styles of information seeking under threat, Laughing and crying: Mixed emotions, compassion, and the effectiveness of a YouTube PSA about skin cancer, Message properties, mediating states, and manipulation checks: Claims, evidence, and data analysis in experimental persuasive message effects research, The extended parallel process model: Illuminating the gaps in research, Emotion elicits the social sharing of emotion: Theory and empirical review, Fear control and danger control: A test of the extended parallel process model (EPPM), Message-Induced Self-Efficacy and its Role in Health Behavior Change, Worry and Rumination as a Consideration When Designing Health and Risk Messages, Lifespan and Developmental Considerations in Health and Risk Message Design, Using Pictures in Health and Risk Messages, Immersive Virtual Environments, Avatars, and Agents for Health, Spiral of Silence in Health and Risk Messaging, Physiological Measures of Wellness and Message Processing, Embarrassment and Health and Risk Messaging, Simultaneous and Successive Emotion Experiences and Health and Risk Messaging. Further, individual differences have been considered to determine who is most likely to experience fear during and after message consumption. (2015) conducted a meta-analysis based on 248 independent samples from studies that contained a treatment group exposed to a fear appeal; a comparison group (described by the authors as a group that was either not exposed to a message or exposed to a message specifically designed to not evoke fear, or exposed to a message meant to induce less fear than the treatment groups message); a manipulation of depicted fear; and a measure of attitudes, intentions, or behaviors. Fear-arousal appeals might be effective for a person with little or no schooling. To help settle the debate, Albarracin and her colleagues conducted what they believe to be the most comprehensive meta-analysis to date. Careers. 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. However, despite anecdotal evidence that physicians communication may trigger fear in patients for the purpose of motivating behavior change or compliance, the intentional use of fear-based messages in the clinical context has not received attention in the academic literature. There is a maximum effective value of fear. Thus, it may be that fear appeals that emphasize efficacy over threat may be more successful for this demographic, though future research is needed to address this question directly. His 1971 theoretical article published in the American Journal of Public Health includes a discussion of previous works dating back to Darwin alongside a discussion of promising ways to persuade people to adopt preventative health behaviors. a fear appeal message is the amount of fear it is intended to arouse in message recipients. This relationship could indicate that individuals who are already in an anxious state of mind when presented with a fear appeal may be more accepting of the message than those who come to a message with less anxiety. For example. HHS Vulnerability Disclosure, Help However, some evidence suggests a more nuanced picture. However, this approach offers a limited understanding of the experience of fear throughout message exposure. Accessibility They can also sometimes be found through online scholarly search engines, such as Google Scholar, PubMed, or the American Psychological Associations PsycNET website. crisis communication; emergency; global health; health communications; risk. 2020 Jul;39(5):376-379. doi: 10.1080/01459740.2020.1745481. 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. 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. Several theories have aimed to describe the effects of fear-based appeals on audiences, focusing largely on the cognitive correlates of fear (i.e., severity and susceptibility) and their subsequent impacts on persuasive outcomes. 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. Given that theories of motivation were losing favor to those that focused on cognition in the field of psychology in the 1970s, it is unsurprising that the next major advance in fear appeal theorizing focused on the cognitive elements associated with fear appeal effectiveness. Reviewed by Lybi Ma. Fear appeals have three major components: the message, the audience, and the recommended behavior. Indeed, the Tannenbaum et al. Horror movies use sound to frighten audiences. 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. Although these meta-analyses focus on different variables used across different fear-appeal theories, together they provide helpful evidence for any theory that utilizes the variables each meta-analysis addressed. However, more recent theorizing has returned to a focus on the influence that the emotion of fear itself has on attitude and behavior change. 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. Paul Mongeau also addresses the history and current state of the fear appeal literature in his chapter of the second edition of The Sage Handbook of Persuasion: Developments in Theory and Practice. With initial exposure to a fear appeal, recipients engage in a threat appraisal. Albarracin also recommended against using only fear-based appeals.
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