Fear appeals are more effective for women because women tend to be more prevention-focused than men. 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). and transmitted securely. Jakovljevic M, Jakovljevic I, Bjedov S, Mustac F. Psychiatr Danub. Once a moderate amount of fear is conveyed, there is no further benefit in adding more fear. fear appeal. Since the 1950s, social scientists have studied the potential effects of fear-arousing messages on audiences. Hope this helps The EFM then predicts that once an emotion is experienced, emotion-consistent information will be made accessible from memory. For example, if the message is so extreme, instead of being influenced by it, the audience could ignore the information altogether. 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 the distinction between the two has not been studied empirically, and the word anxious is frequently included among the emotion words used to assess fear responses to persuasive appeals, it is useful to recognize that the experience of fear and anxiety are distinguishable, with fear carrying the potential for more adaptive action. How to Stop Your Mind When It Spins Out of Control. 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. You could not be signed in, please check and try again. According to the model, people respond to health risk messages through two forms of cognitive apprais als that occur sequentially. For example, fear appeals begin with threat information followed by efficacy information. Two years later, in their meta-analysis of 98 studies, Witte and Allen (2000) likewise found a moderately positive relationship between fear appeals and experienced fear (r = .30). Keywords: Fear appeals, risk, health communication, meta-analysis Fear appeals are persuasive messages that attempt to arouse fear by emphasizing the potential danger and harm that will befall individuals if they do not adopt the messages' recommendations (Dillard, 1996; Maddux & Rogers, 1983). found that this dynamic approach offered evidence in support of a curvilinear relationship between fear and persuasion. 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. a fear appeal message is the amount of fear it is intended to arouse in message recipients. (2015) calculated an average weighted effect size comparing groups exposed to moderate fear versus those exposed to high depicted fear. Bookshelf 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. 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. Bethesda, MD 20894, Web Policies 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. PMC They also found that efficacy responses were included in 56% of the stories, but of these, only 23% made statements speaking to the effectiveness of such actions. SSM Popul Health. This paper provides an insight into the use of fear appeals to communicate a public health message. 2020 Jun 22;140(10). Printed from Oxford Research Encyclopedias, Communication. When a growing body of empirical evidence found a positive linear relationship between fear and persuasion (that is, the more frightened participants were, the more persuasive the message, generally speaking), the drive model no longer seemed a plausible explanation for why fear appeals affect audiences (Beck & Frankel, 1981; Giesen & Hendrick, 1974; Mewborn & Rogers, 1979). I believe that most current approaches to anxiety fall short because they are predicated on the medical model, which views anxiety as an illness. There can be feelings of disgust, anger, anxiety, or guilt. Although little research speaks to this issue, Williams-Piehota, Pizarro, Schneider, Mowad, and Salovey (2005) found that participants classified as blunters responded with less negative affect to mammography messages that were simple and direct versus lengthy and detailed in their presentation of threat and efficacy information. Of note, though the terms fear and anxiety are often used interchangeably in everyday language, they each represent unique affective states with, theoretically, different implications in persuasion contexts. However, if a person focuses on controlling the emotion of fear, fear control processes are engaged, which ultimately result in maladaptive outcomes, such as avoidance, denial, and reactance. These emotions may also have an effect on behavioral changes. For example. 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. Given that fear appeals are designed to evoke powerful emotional responses, it is reasonable to surmise that such messages may be the source of social sharing, both through interpersonal discussion and social media posting or commenting. However, trait anxiety has been linked to other outcomes of fear appeals. 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. Fear appeal is a typical marketing strategy that aims to affect behavior by inducing anxiety in individuals who are exposed to a frightening message. Therefore, they can be quite useful to practitioners. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. 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. In essence, different types of audiences with different predispositions are likely to respond differently to fear appeals. 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. The study of fear-based messages has a long and robust history. 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). government site. Sixty years of fear appeal research: Current state of the evidence. 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. Tannenbaum et al. 2020 Oct;111:37-38. doi: 10.1016/j.pediatrneurol.2020.06.015. While these types of messages are commonly used in political, public health and commercial advertising campaigns (e.g., smoking will kill you, Candidate A will destroy the economy), their use is controversial as academics continue to debate their effectiveness. 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. Effects of general and corona-specific stressors on mental burden during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in Germany. Accessibility 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). For instance, there is little work to confirm that people actually stay attuned to an entire fear appeal encountered in their daily lives or change the channel to avoid the unpleasant information (Witte & Allen, 2000). 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). As such, monitors and blunters may respond differently to fear appeal messages. From a message-design standpoint, the EPPM suggests that fear-arousing messages should include both threat and efficacy information if they are to persuade audiences to take adaptive actions. This is because present-oriented goals are more important than future-oriented, protection-related goals when one perceives her timeline to be limited. That is because threat perceptions are necessary to elicit fear but efficacy perceptions are necessary to promote protection motivation. 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. 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). Psychology Today 2023 Sussex Publishers, LLC. Fear appeals are often used in public health service announcements and health behavior change campaigns. 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). Undoubtedly, most of us have been exposed to fear appeal campaigns regarding health issues, politics, and traffic and driving safety. There are multiple explanations for this need to share, including the need to verbalize experiences to help make sense of them, to help validate the self or confirm that people are still themselves despite this event, and to allow groups to develop collective social knowledge of emotional experiences. They looked at 127 research articles representing 248 independent samples and over 27,000 individuals from experiments conducted between 1962 and 2014. (2015) meta-analysis did not examine the relationship between the amount of fear aroused and fear-appeal effects on persuasive outcomes. 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. The emotion of feara negatively valenced response to a threatis an innate experience, and one that likely evolved from mammalian defense systems (hman, 2008). 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. 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. More research examining the influence of fear-based health news storieswith particular focus on the structure of such news stories and audience expectations, or schema, about the type of content in different types of messagesis necessary. 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). There has been sporadic attention in the literature to the individual differences that may determine the types of audiences who will be more or less persuaded by a fear appeal. This raises the question of how gender-role socialization may influence how men, in particular, respond to fear appeals in terms of experienced fear versus reported fear, and the implications for both message design and application. Unauthorized use of these marks is strictly prohibited. Appealing to fear: A Meta-Analysis of fear appeal effectiveness and theories. Indeed, in a systematic review of the EPPM literature, Popova (2012) found that two of Wittes (1992) propositions, (a) when perceived efficacy is at a moderate level, perceived threat will have an inverted-U-shaped effect on message acceptance, and (b) when perceived efficacy is at a high level, there is a reciprocal relationship between perceived threat and fear, have yet to be empirically tested. Men have long been silent and stoic about their inner lives, but theres every reason for them to open up emotionallyand their partners are helping. 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. If news stories are processed as fear appeals, this composition suggests concern that health stories are not reaching their potential to positively influence the health behaviors of audiences. 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. The American Psychological Association, in Washington, D.C., is the largest scientific and professional organization representing psychology in the United States. 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. Additionally, audiences will be motivated to attend to message information that is consistent with the goals of the aroused emotion (e.g., protection, in the case of fear). For generations of health educators, public health campaigns around health issues emphasized positive messages and highlighted . The emotional flow perspective suggests that the threat information results in fear arousal, and the efficacy information is associated with feelings of hope. 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. Indeed, though meta-analyses support a linear relationship between fear arousal and persuasive outcomes, recent methodologies suggest that shifts in experienced fear across a fear appeal, an inverted-U pattern of fear responses specifically, may also be a valid predictor of the persuasiveness of a fear appeal (Meczkowski, Dillard, & Shen, 2016). They can also sometimes be found through online scholarly search engines, such as Google Scholar, PubMed, or the American Psychological Associations PsycNET website. The COVID-19 Pandemic: Making Sense of Rumor and Fear. 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. However, these gender differences are likely moderated by gender-role socialization processes such that expressions of fear are typically looked down on for men but not women, resulting in a cycle whereby fearful reactions by women are both tolerated and expected by other members of society (McLean & Anderson, 2009). These appeals are effective at changing attitudes, intentions and behaviors. With strong evolutionary roots, fear serves important functions, including alerting people to present threats and motivating action to avoid future threats. Health persuasion through emoji: How emoji interacted with information source to predict health behaviors in COVID-19 situation. These included two perceptions related to the potential threat: severity of the threat and susceptibility to it. 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). An overview of the scholarly work on the emotion of fear, fear appeal theories, and fear as a variable that impacts post-message attitudes and behaviors can provide insights as to what is currently known, as well as what remains to be learned about how fear can be incorporated into persuasive messages and to what effect.