This paper reviews models and studies between the relationship of fear arousal, information processing, and motivation. The paper mentions numerous studies, two of the studies that brought up interesting points were the studies with Chaiken. The studies focused on subjects defensive avoidance strategies when dealing with persuasive messages. Jepson and Chaiken’s (1990) study showed that the subjects with high chronic fear ‘detected fewer errors’ than subjects with low chronic fear when attending to a persuasive message. The subjects with high chronic fear used defensive avoidance strategies to block out the persuasive information. Jepson and Chaiken saw that subjects with high chronic fear have learned avoidance strategies when dealing with pressing issues that are highly relevant to them. Liberman and Chaiken (1992) presented a similar study and focused more on personal relevance than chronic fear. Their study centered around women coffee drinkers and women non-coffee drinkers. Both sets of women were presented with threatening information that linked coffee to fibrocystic disease. The coffee drinkers processed the information in a ‘defensive and biased manner.’ The non –coffee drinkers were less critical of the information and questioned the links between coffee and fibrocystic disease. Both chronic fear and personal relevance contribute to how a subject positions themselves towards a persuasive message. For example, a smokers with high chronic fear of lung cancer will lean on defensive avoidance strategies if they don’t wish to hear the persuasive message against smoking. And the same for a highly relevant message.
Public health ads are primarily executed by issuing some sort of fear rhetoric. Though not particularly successful, the use of fear appeals has been rampant in that practice. A fear appeal is defined as a persuasive communication attempting to arouse fear in order to promote precautionary motivation and self-protection. After numerous studies, they determined that fear was not suitable for a learning-enhanced drive. There was lack of empirical support to prove that theory true. There were a few studies done on some ideologies of fear appeals. Leventhal created a Parallel Response Model, which basically had the ability to delineate the justification for fear appeals. The PRM evolved into the Protection Motivation Theory, which states that there are two cognitive processes that constitute danger control responses. However there is still no way to determine the efficacy of the fear appeal. Ultimately the review decides that fear appeals are more successful on a systematic approach. There is no way to prove if it is the fear arousal that is the main driving force behind our actions. It seems as if the inhibition and facilitation of fear appeals inevitably on the society. The article tends to allude to the ideology of implementing fear tactics will continue regardless, however there always need to be a weighing calculus to determine the inherent fear. It is almost as if the extreme consistent basis that is the dependency of fear tactics used by the health industry may have de-sensitized the public to their effects which would usually result in an alternate reaction.
Health is something that almost every person worries about. This article discusses the main topics such as fear appeals, their motivation, and how people process the information. This article also talks about the different studies they’ve done and whether they were successful or not; “effectiveness have not identified fear arousal as a feature that distinguishes between effective and ineffective interventions.” People may process information as a threat but there is no way to know how effective fear appeals are.One thing that stuck out to me was the danger control we take in order to protect ourselves. People with low self-esteem act differently to messages than people with high-esteem. It then goes into talk about the Protection Motivation theory, which is a social cognitive model. Fear arousal plays a big part in social cognitive models, such as the PMT theory. They redefined it as an “attitude based model” which makes since when it all goes back to self-efficacy. Another interesting topic this article discusses was the two stages of action control people took after a fear-arousal message. First was a decisional or motivational stage that gathers intention formation. The second action control people took was a post-decisional stage, which involves self-regulatory activities. Both of these help illustrate how people respond to fear arousal. Fear arousal definitely plays a huge part in peoples reactions to information. However, these studies have shown that although people do respond to fear tactics, they cannot prove that this is the only thing driving them to react towards the information.
This day in age we always hear about health problems and/or watch health adds on tv or on the web. The whole focus in this article is about Motivation and Fear appeals. They have been studies on whether it is a positive way of educating the viewer or ineffective. Everyone’s personality varies, so someone might take a threat(fear) differently than other but there is no way of knowing how an effective fear appeals to one another. As described in the article, Self-esteems play a big part on how messages are portrayed. Someone with a High self-esteem will take a certain message in a positive way (fear) whereas someone with a Low self-esteem might take it as a (Threat). Leventhal then developed The Parallel response model (later called the parallel process model - which began to focus more on cognitive processes, as opposed to emotional processes. Having a Mental fear is quite different than an emotional fear.
After reading the article I found out a lot more about fear arousal and different threats that can be associated with peoples actions. I feel that fear arousal is the main idea behind people that are trying to make a change in a specific group of people. Relating fear arousal to health, as the article said the smoking advertisements that show bad lungs or even death symbols suggest a threat. Obviously the threat is be used to better people’s lives and get them to not use tobacco, but I find myself asking the question is that the correct way to get everyone’s attention. I feel that it might put more fear into one’s life but might not make a change at all in the action they take in their future habits. I agree with the article when it talks about the research that suggests that in the absence of high self-efficacy and response efficacy, threat perception may present maladaptive fear control coping rather than danger control. I believe that this research is spot on with their findings. I personally feel that it is an accurate statement about threat perception, and others could agree that fear would be controlled more in a situation rather than danger control when speaking in terms of threat perception. This article tells a lot about how people react to certain tests and real life situations that deal with fear in general. For instance, like I said earlier, people that see those nonsmoking advertisements are supposed to be persuaded by them to quit smoking. This is supposed to be done with fear and there perception of their own future. Overall, I feel that in the end people are going to listen to what they want to no matter what is bad or good for them because of ignorance in their lives.
This article to a more personal look at the relevance of and factors of each individual person.It focuses more on the aspect of cognitive responses. Claiming that there has been no real evidence of fear effects on each individual person, the article brings to light many theorists with models that would address this issue. The proposed theory that fear arousal was linked to a low level of action, because the individual with low chronic fear would rationally take in the information and rehearse it. Janis (1967) and McGuire (1968,1969) predicted that low fear would cause a person to act with precautionary behavior whereas a person of high fear would react defensively. This model draws on the individuals preconceived paradigm of the world according to them. If a person already has a continued high amount of fear than they are more likely to reject and get defensive. This is where the social cognitive model, or the Protection Motivation Theory, parallels to individuals esteems. However, after many trials the theory draws back to systematic approaches. The article warns of the use of Fear appeals in the Health arena, showing that the data is inconsistent for this particular hypothesis.
This paper demonstrates and explains the relationship between fear arousal, motivation, information processing, and self-protective action. It also attempts to cause a little more clarification between the differences of emotional (or fear arousal) and cognitive (threat perception) responses to fear appeals.
In one study, Leventhal suggests that “fear appeals incorporate different stimuli that trigger distinct motivational and coping responses, particularly fear control and danger control. When speaking about fear control he refers to it as “the involving emotion-focused coping that generates reassurance through denial of the threat or derogation of the message.” He defines danger control as “the cognitive process oriented towards the presented threat, rather than the evoked fear.” In short, fear control negates the fact of a threat and draws on fear and emotions as the motivational factor. Danger control presents the threat which actually serves as the motivational factor in this instance. Both responses are distinct and independent, but one may overpower the other depending on the individual and his or her circumstances.
Leventhal’s study does not distinctly “specify how fear control and danger control processes are related” and Rogers’ study focuses only on the danger control process, which is why Witte conducts her study that focuses on fear control. Her model takes both fear and danger control processes into account. Even though these studies takes a step towards clarification, it only does so a little bit. The paper goes on to state that there are many different factors that determine the type of reactions that will occur in response to fear appeals, such as threat-relevant information, lack of clarification between threat and fear arousal, and the relationship between personal relevance and susceptibility.
Ruiter discusses the basis of fear appeals and how they can affect their targets. He discusses a concept of using fear appeals as learning-enhancing devices, which came to be through the thought that fear arousal enhances message acceptance when the message also prompts a mental rehearsal of the precaution that reduces fear. He also discusses Protection Motivation Theory, which is the predominant theoretical framework for the study of fear appeals. Later he discusses fear arousal as an “information-processing moderator,” which assumes that the target of a fear appeal will rationally and deliberatively process the information in an attempt to make the right decision. Ruiter explains the idea that fear arousals are closely linked to threat perception and how we control our fears. He also ponders the possibility of fear acting as a threat to our ability to actually process information, and wonders if fear might act as an inhibitor to this process in certain circumstances. It would suggest that our brain processes fear foremost and will ignore other processes that should be occurring simultaneously. Those other processes would be crucially important in the case of danger control, which Rogers suggests in his article. Ruiter also discusses how our brain should use precautionary information to evaluate the effectiveness of reactions to fear appeals. His basic point is not to overreact to fear appeals, and analyze them for what they are, attempts to force uncertain actions.
This article acknowledges the many unanswered questions regarding whether fear appeals create fear-arousal causing an individual to take precautionary motivation actions or other action, and whether fear appeal models are more emotionally based or cognitively based. There is also research that suggests that fear appeals can create more defensive reactions. This article specifically addresses the use of fear appeals and application of various models in health campaigns.
The structure of fear appeals as stated in this article still deem relevant. Fear appeals present a threat, which the recipient is susceptible to, and a search for safety precautions to that threat (619). One of the primary fear appeal models (PRM) was developed by Leventhal. PRM model showed the possible effects of fear appeals and focused primarily on fear control and danger control. I agree with the PRM assumption that “fear can precipitate emotion-focused processes that may undermine precautionary motivation” (616). Following PRM theory, Rogers came up with his Protection Motivation Theory (PMT), which suggests that threat appraisal and coping appraisal generate protection motivation (616). PMT added the idea of rewards versus costs, which could affect an individual’s response to a fear appeal, and also was more defined as an attitude-based model.
I found the studies performed by Chaiken and colleagues interesting and relevant. I agree that chronic fear and high perceptions of personal relevance directly affect the outcome of defensive reactions to health information (620). If a person has a chronic fear that he or she will become infected with cancer, the persuasion and use of fear appeals to take precautionary action will most likely be accepted by that person. Conversely, if a person feels that he or she will never become infected by cancer, fear appeals and persuasive messages have a greater challenge. Similarly, if a topic is highly relevant to a person’s life, a person is more likely to result in defensive systematic processing of the threatening message (620). Someone who loves smoking, and has no real intention of quitting, can rationalize the threat message as not applying to him or her personally, and basically disregard the message. Someone who hates smoking is more likely to accept the no-smoking message because the message is not promoting a behavior change in his or her life and he or she already sides favorably with the message most likely.
The final topic I will touch on is this article’s suggestion that presenting precautionary information and promoting precautionary actions is likely to be more effective than scaring people with potential health risks and haunting imagery. I think this is true for many people, but some people are greatly affected by the images they see.
The article begins by suggesting a problem when using fear appeals as means to persuade an audience. They suggest that fear appeals "may prompt denial that undermines precautionary motivation". The article breaks down a fear appeal model that has not been changed for over 45 years. First, identify a threat, which is severe, that the audience is susceptible to. Then, provide a recommendation. The recommendation may be used to neutralize the threat and is easy to execute. The author proposes that risk information generates feelings of fear before or during the perception of threat. They conclude that fear may be a primary response that leads to automatic fear control processes that could interfere with the formation of motivation. They suggest using a different method to establish motivation. They suggest that precautionary information should ideally highlight the effectiveness of the recommended action, address concerns over costs and promote self-efficacy. They make some recommendations on how to approach health related prevention messages. “Prevention behaviors typically result in relatively certain, desirable outcomes so that not performing the behavior becomes the risky option. Kahneman and Tversky have shown that people prefer risky options when confronted with losses but prefer certainty when considering gains. So, the more risky detection actions will be most attractive when potential losses are highlighted when the less risky preventative behaviors will be promoted best by emphasizing potential gains. They then highlight a study that concluded that specifying when and where an intention is to be enacted can distinguish between those who intend to do and those who do not intend to act. They argue that such detailed plans create cues in action in relevant environments, which prompt intenders to act automatically when encountered. This research emphasis the importance of combining fear appeals with specific instructions and prompts to action planning
This paper attempts to explain the relationships with fear appeals and how they effect decision making. It shows the differences in cognitive and emotional response to fear as well. Public health ads fall directly into the fear appeals category. Health is something that a lot of people worry about and the use of fear appeals when it comes to public health are used widely even though they could be described as unsuccessful. Leventhal developed a process called the parallel response model. This was intended to measure fear appeals from a cognitive stance rather than from purely an emotional stance. The reason for this is because everybody experiences different levels of emotions when it comes to fear. To argue this point though, one could say the same thing about cognitive fear. People's brains work differently in when it comes to a cognitive process just like they do when you talk about an emotional response. Though mental fear and emotional fear are two completely different concepts, the one thing they have in common is that different people experience both types of fear in different ways.
The article that we were assigned has some good insight as to how people are motivated to act based on fear appeals. It looks at fear appeals that seem to be justified because it was for a greater good. It is interesting the study that was done with little fear appeal had such an impact in the 1950s and the later study did in the 1990s had different results. Both of the studies that were done were trying to convince the audience to be aware of dental hygene and how to clean your teeth properly. I find it a reflection of our society that strong fear appeals seem prevelant in our society. Another note worthy thing to take from this is that fear appeals always seem to justify the means. To elaborate, even though we see fear appeals as bad the strong fear appeals adds always hide behind a just cause which pardons the add from insult. Also when they explain how fear structures work, one begins to analyze how these fear campaigns work. The basic structure of presenting a threat and providing a solution is similar to the article we read last week when pertaining to the two results of fear appeal. In the sense that they invoke fear then providing a way to avoid that fearful outcome is using fear in a fallacious manner. It is important that we understand what makes us fear. The theories presented gives us an insight as to how to avoid becoming sucked into a fear appeal.
In the last reading we learned what a fear appeal was and how it was executed. After reading the article, we now will be learning how those fear appeals are sometimes avoided and the strategies used by those avoiding. Let’s take the first article as an example. The article sites studies on how people react to fear appeals, and Chaiken determines an important conclusion. People with higher levels of chronic fear have the tendency to be more alert, and therefore more paranoid with problems than people with low levels. Though this was to be expected, I think the study was to show that fear appeals come in many different forms, and what isn’t an appeal to others can very easily scare and appeal to someone else. But when received, how does the target act? As Chaiken points out, groups often avoid problems that were brought on because of fear appeals. Not say they literally avoid a problem by walking away or something, but they use what are called “defensive avoidance strategies”. Like someone who sees pro-life campaigns might have a special skill to ignore those campaigns because that individual happens to be pro-choice. In conclusion, I think we learned an important step here. In a world that is constantly using fear appeals, there are methods and strategies that can be taken to become immune to the fear appealing to you. So maybe there is hope in the Capitalistic, government-controlled, nut house we like to call our country…just kidding
Ruiter, Abraham and Kok's study of fear appeals and the efficacy of fear appeals incorporates a wide variety of theories and other studies in its case. With the exorbitant amount of theories and internal citations, the point of this article was completely lost on me. This has to be one of my least favorite articles that I have read in college. Maybe I've just been lucky and read entertaining articles throughout my collegiate career, or maybe this one just sinks below the rest in the vapid pool of research articles. Nevertheless, I will try and convey some of its information on here. Theories such as the PRM discuss the 2 cognitive differences that "suggest that fear appeals incorporate different stimuli that trigger distinctive motivational and coping responses." This, and other theories attempt to calculate the efficacy of fear appeals and try and find the most effective fear persuasions. One of the more interesting points the article brings up is the curved nature of fear appeals. When the fear appeal exposes an extreme, the respondent can then see the threat as an improbability and switch into a state of denial. Just as a low threat would cause a very low reaction. The goal would be to find a middle ground that would gain the acceptance of the audience and catalyst a response from the audience. This was about the only thing that I learned from this article.
This article seems to focus on the use of fear appeals in individuals and how they respond as well as the effects that these fear appeals show after they have been recognized. Also, I believe that one of the main ideas focus on the fact that fear appeals loose effectiveness over time. I believe the best example of this is where Ruiter talks about the use of fear appeals in using condoms to reduce the chance of spreading HIV and AIDS. Ruiter proposes that fear arousal enhances message acceptance when the message also prompts mental rehearsal of the recommended precaution that reduces fear. So using the given example above, an individual would see some sort of advertisement or something that shows that deciding not to use a condom could lead to contracting a deadly disease such as HIV or AIDS and in doing so, the individual will mentally rehearse the solution (wearing a condom) in order to reduce their fear of contracting the virus. This example focuses on the idea of the Protection Motivation Theory (PMT), which consists of Threat appraisal and coping appraisal; where individuals determine the seriousness and personal susceptibility and the effectiveness of the potential responses and their ability to undertake these potential responses towards the threat. Also, the over use of these types of threats tend to be overused, therefore, they simply tend to be looked over and forgotten by the audience that is supposed to be the target of the fear appeal.
This paper reviews models and studies between the relationship of fear arousal, information processing, and motivation. The paper mentions numerous studies, two of the studies that brought up interesting points were the studies with Chaiken. The studies focused on subjects defensive avoidance strategies when dealing with persuasive messages. Jepson and Chaiken’s (1990) study showed that the subjects with high chronic fear ‘detected fewer errors’ than subjects with low chronic fear when attending to a persuasive message. The subjects with high chronic fear used defensive avoidance strategies to block out the persuasive information. Jepson and Chaiken saw that subjects with high chronic fear have learned avoidance strategies when dealing with pressing issues that are highly relevant to them.
ReplyDeleteLiberman and Chaiken (1992) presented a similar study and focused more on personal relevance than chronic fear. Their study centered around women coffee drinkers and women non-coffee drinkers. Both sets of women were presented with threatening information that linked coffee to fibrocystic disease. The coffee drinkers processed the information in a ‘defensive and biased manner.’ The non –coffee drinkers were less critical of the information and questioned the links between coffee and fibrocystic disease.
Both chronic fear and personal relevance contribute to how a subject positions themselves towards a persuasive message. For example, a smokers with high chronic fear of lung cancer will lean on defensive avoidance strategies if they don’t wish to hear the persuasive message against smoking. And the same for a highly relevant message.
Public health ads are primarily executed by issuing some sort of fear rhetoric. Though not particularly successful, the use of fear appeals has been rampant in that practice. A fear appeal is defined as a persuasive communication attempting to arouse fear in order to promote precautionary motivation and self-protection. After numerous studies, they determined that fear was not suitable for a learning-enhanced drive. There was lack of empirical support to prove that theory true. There were a few studies done on some ideologies of fear appeals. Leventhal created a Parallel Response Model, which basically had the ability to delineate the justification for fear appeals. The PRM evolved into the Protection Motivation Theory, which states that there are two cognitive processes that constitute danger control responses. However there is still no way to determine the efficacy of the fear appeal. Ultimately the review decides that fear appeals are more successful on a systematic approach. There is no way to prove if it is the fear arousal that is the main driving force behind our actions. It seems as if the inhibition and facilitation of fear appeals inevitably on the society. The article tends to allude to the ideology of implementing fear tactics will continue regardless, however there always need to be a weighing calculus to determine the inherent fear. It is almost as if the extreme consistent basis that is the dependency of fear tactics used by the health industry may have de-sensitized the public to their effects which would usually result in an alternate reaction.
ReplyDeleteHealth is something that almost every person worries about. This article discusses the main topics such as fear appeals, their motivation, and how people process the information. This article also talks about the different studies they’ve done and whether they were successful or not; “effectiveness have not identified fear arousal as a feature that distinguishes between effective and ineffective interventions.” People may process information as a threat but there is no way to know how effective fear appeals are.One thing that stuck out to me was the danger control we take in order to protect ourselves. People with low self-esteem act differently to messages than people with high-esteem. It then goes into talk about the Protection Motivation theory, which is a social cognitive model. Fear arousal plays a big part in social cognitive models, such as the PMT theory. They redefined it as an “attitude based model” which makes since when it all goes back to self-efficacy. Another interesting topic this article discusses was the two stages of action control people took after a fear-arousal message. First was a decisional or motivational stage that gathers intention formation. The second action control people took was a post-decisional stage, which involves self-regulatory activities. Both of these help illustrate how people respond to fear arousal. Fear arousal definitely plays a huge part in peoples reactions to information. However, these studies have shown that although people do respond to fear tactics, they cannot prove that this is the only thing driving them to react towards the information.
ReplyDeleteThis day in age we always hear about health problems and/or watch health adds on tv or on the web. The whole focus in this article is about Motivation and Fear appeals. They have been studies on whether it is a positive way of educating the viewer or ineffective. Everyone’s personality varies, so someone might take a threat(fear) differently than other but there is no way of knowing how an effective fear appeals to one another. As described in the article, Self-esteems play a big part on how messages are portrayed. Someone with a High self-esteem will take a certain message in a positive way (fear) whereas someone with a Low self-esteem might take it as a (Threat). Leventhal then developed The Parallel response model (later called the parallel process model - which began to focus more on cognitive processes, as opposed to emotional processes. Having a Mental fear is quite different than an emotional fear.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading the article I found out a lot more about fear arousal and different threats that can be associated with peoples actions. I feel that fear arousal is the main idea behind people that are trying to make a change in a specific group of people. Relating fear arousal to health, as the article said the smoking advertisements that show bad lungs or even death symbols suggest a threat. Obviously the threat is be used to better people’s lives and get them to not use tobacco, but I find myself asking the question is that the correct way to get everyone’s attention. I feel that it might put more fear into one’s life but might not make a change at all in the action they take in their future habits. I agree with the article when it talks about the research that suggests that in the absence of high self-efficacy and response efficacy, threat perception may present maladaptive fear control coping rather than danger control. I believe that this research is spot on with their findings. I personally feel that it is an accurate statement about threat perception, and others could agree that fear would be controlled more in a situation rather than danger control when speaking in terms of threat perception. This article tells a lot about how people react to certain tests and real life situations that deal with fear in general. For instance, like I said earlier, people that see those nonsmoking advertisements are supposed to be persuaded by them to quit smoking. This is supposed to be done with fear and there perception of their own future. Overall, I feel that in the end people are going to listen to what they want to no matter what is bad or good for them because of ignorance in their lives.
ReplyDeleteThis article to a more personal look at the relevance of and factors of each individual person.It focuses more on the aspect of cognitive responses. Claiming that there has been no real evidence of fear effects on each individual person, the article brings to light many theorists with models that would address this issue. The proposed theory that fear arousal was linked to a low level of action, because the individual with low chronic fear would rationally take in the information and rehearse it.
ReplyDeleteJanis (1967) and McGuire (1968,1969) predicted that low fear would cause a person to act with precautionary behavior whereas a person of high fear would react defensively. This model draws on the individuals preconceived paradigm of the world according to them. If a person already has a continued high amount of fear than they are more likely to reject and get defensive. This is where the social cognitive model, or the Protection Motivation Theory, parallels to individuals esteems. However, after many trials the theory draws back to systematic approaches.
The article warns of the use of Fear appeals in the Health arena, showing that the data is inconsistent for this particular hypothesis.
This paper demonstrates and explains the relationship between fear arousal, motivation, information processing, and self-protective action. It also attempts to cause a little more clarification between the differences of emotional (or fear arousal) and cognitive (threat perception) responses to fear appeals.
ReplyDeleteIn one study, Leventhal suggests that “fear appeals incorporate different stimuli that trigger distinct motivational and coping responses, particularly fear control and danger control. When speaking about fear control he refers to it as “the involving emotion-focused coping that generates reassurance through denial of the threat or derogation of the message.” He defines danger control as “the cognitive process oriented towards the presented threat, rather than the evoked fear.” In short, fear control negates the fact of a threat and draws on fear and emotions as the motivational factor. Danger control presents the threat which actually serves as the motivational factor in this instance. Both responses are distinct and independent, but one may overpower the other depending on the individual and his or her circumstances.
Leventhal’s study does not distinctly “specify how fear control and danger control processes are related” and Rogers’ study focuses only on the danger control process, which is why Witte conducts her study that focuses on fear control. Her model takes both fear and danger control processes into account. Even though these studies takes a step towards clarification, it only does so a little bit. The paper goes on to state that there are many different factors that determine the type of reactions that will occur in response to fear appeals, such as threat-relevant information, lack of clarification between threat and fear arousal, and the relationship between personal relevance and susceptibility.
Ruiter discusses the basis of fear appeals and how they can affect their targets. He discusses a concept of using fear appeals as learning-enhancing devices, which came to be through the thought that fear arousal enhances message acceptance when the message also prompts a mental rehearsal of the precaution that reduces fear. He also discusses Protection Motivation Theory, which is the predominant theoretical framework for the study of fear appeals. Later he discusses fear arousal as an “information-processing moderator,” which assumes that the target of a fear appeal will rationally and deliberatively process the information in an attempt to make the right decision.
ReplyDeleteRuiter explains the idea that fear arousals are closely linked to threat perception and how we control our fears. He also ponders the possibility of fear acting as a threat to our ability to actually process information, and wonders if fear might act as an inhibitor to this process in certain circumstances. It would suggest that our brain processes fear foremost and will ignore other processes that should be occurring simultaneously. Those other processes would be crucially important in the case of danger control, which Rogers suggests in his article. Ruiter also discusses how our brain should use precautionary information to evaluate the effectiveness of reactions to fear appeals. His basic point is not to overreact to fear appeals, and analyze them for what they are, attempts to force uncertain actions.
This article acknowledges the many unanswered questions regarding whether fear appeals create fear-arousal causing an individual to take precautionary motivation actions or other action, and whether fear appeal models are more emotionally based or cognitively based. There is also research that suggests that fear appeals can create more defensive reactions. This article specifically addresses the use of fear appeals and application of various models in health campaigns.
ReplyDeleteThe structure of fear appeals as stated in this article still deem relevant. Fear appeals present a threat, which the recipient is susceptible to, and a search for safety precautions to that threat (619). One of the primary fear appeal models (PRM) was developed by Leventhal. PRM model showed the possible effects of fear appeals and focused primarily on fear control and danger control. I agree with the PRM assumption that “fear can precipitate emotion-focused processes that may undermine precautionary motivation” (616). Following PRM theory, Rogers came up with his Protection Motivation Theory (PMT), which suggests that threat appraisal and coping appraisal generate protection motivation (616). PMT added the idea of rewards versus costs, which could affect an individual’s response to a fear appeal, and also was more defined as an attitude-based model.
I found the studies performed by Chaiken and colleagues interesting and relevant. I agree that chronic fear and high perceptions of personal relevance directly affect the outcome of defensive reactions to health information (620). If a person has a chronic fear that he or she will become infected with cancer, the persuasion and use of fear appeals to take precautionary action will most likely be accepted by that person. Conversely, if a person feels that he or she will never become infected by cancer, fear appeals and persuasive messages have a greater challenge. Similarly, if a topic is highly relevant to a person’s life, a person is more likely to result in defensive systematic processing of the threatening message (620). Someone who loves smoking, and has no real intention of quitting, can rationalize the threat message as not applying to him or her personally, and basically disregard the message. Someone who hates smoking is more likely to accept the no-smoking message because the message is not promoting a behavior change in his or her life and he or she already sides favorably with the message most likely.
The final topic I will touch on is this article’s suggestion that presenting precautionary information and promoting precautionary actions is likely to be more effective than scaring people with potential health risks and haunting imagery. I think this is true for many people, but some people are greatly affected by the images they see.
The article begins by suggesting a problem when using fear appeals as means to persuade an audience. They suggest that fear appeals "may prompt denial that undermines precautionary motivation". The article breaks down a fear appeal model that has not been changed for over 45 years. First, identify a threat, which is severe, that the audience is susceptible to. Then, provide a recommendation. The recommendation may be used to neutralize the threat and is easy to execute.
DeleteThe author proposes that risk information generates feelings of fear before or during the perception of threat. They conclude that fear may be a primary response that leads to automatic fear control processes that could interfere with the formation of motivation.
They suggest using a different method to establish motivation. They suggest that precautionary information should ideally highlight the effectiveness of the recommended action, address concerns over costs and promote self-efficacy. They make some recommendations on how to approach health related prevention messages. “Prevention behaviors typically result in relatively certain, desirable outcomes so that not performing the behavior becomes the risky option. Kahneman and Tversky have shown that people prefer risky options when confronted with losses but prefer certainty when considering gains. So, the more risky detection actions will be most attractive when potential losses are highlighted when the less risky preventative behaviors will be promoted best by emphasizing potential gains.
They then highlight a study that concluded that specifying when and where an intention is to be enacted can distinguish between those who intend to do and those who do not intend to act. They argue that such detailed plans create cues in action in relevant environments, which prompt intenders to act automatically when encountered. This research emphasis the importance of combining fear appeals with specific instructions and prompts to action planning
and identifies the different
This paper attempts to explain the relationships with fear appeals and how they effect decision making. It shows the differences in cognitive and emotional response to fear as well. Public health ads fall directly into the fear appeals category. Health is something that a lot of people worry about and the use of fear appeals when it comes to public health are used widely even though they could be described as unsuccessful. Leventhal developed a process called the parallel response model. This was intended to measure fear appeals from a cognitive stance rather than from purely an emotional stance. The reason for this is because everybody experiences different levels of emotions when it comes to fear. To argue this point though, one could say the same thing about cognitive fear. People's brains work differently in when it comes to a cognitive process just like they do when you talk about an emotional response. Though mental fear and emotional fear are two completely different concepts, the one thing they have in common is that different people experience both types of fear in different ways.
ReplyDeleteThe article that we were assigned has some good insight as to how people are motivated to act based on fear appeals. It looks at fear appeals that seem to be justified because it was for a greater good. It is interesting the study that was done with little fear appeal had such an impact in the 1950s and the later study did in the 1990s had different results. Both of the studies that were done were trying to convince the audience to be aware of dental hygene and how to clean your teeth properly. I find it a reflection of our society that strong fear appeals seem prevelant in our society. Another note worthy thing to take from this is that fear appeals always seem to justify the means. To elaborate, even though we see fear appeals as bad the strong fear appeals adds always hide behind a just cause which pardons the add from insult.
DeleteAlso when they explain how fear structures work, one begins to analyze how these fear campaigns work. The basic structure of presenting a threat and providing a solution is similar to the article we read last week when pertaining to the two results of fear appeal. In the sense that they invoke fear then providing a way to avoid that fearful outcome is using fear in a fallacious manner. It is important that we understand what makes us fear. The theories presented gives us an insight as to how to avoid becoming sucked into a fear appeal.
In the last reading we learned what a fear appeal was and how it was executed. After reading the article, we now will be learning how those fear appeals are sometimes avoided and the strategies used by those avoiding. Let’s take the first article as an example. The article sites studies on how people react to fear appeals, and Chaiken determines an important conclusion. People with higher levels of chronic fear have the tendency to be more alert, and therefore more paranoid with problems than people with low levels. Though this was to be expected, I think the study was to show that fear appeals come in many different forms, and what isn’t an appeal to others can very easily scare and appeal to someone else. But when received, how does the target act? As Chaiken points out, groups often avoid problems that were brought on because of fear appeals. Not say they literally avoid a problem by walking away or something, but they use what are called “defensive avoidance strategies”. Like someone who sees pro-life campaigns might have a special skill to ignore those campaigns because that individual happens to be pro-choice. In conclusion, I think we learned an important step here. In a world that is constantly using fear appeals, there are methods and strategies that can be taken to become immune to the fear appealing to you. So maybe there is hope in the Capitalistic, government-controlled, nut house we like to call our country…just kidding
ReplyDeleteRuiter, Abraham and Kok's study of fear appeals and the efficacy of fear appeals incorporates a wide variety of theories and other studies in its case. With the exorbitant amount of theories and internal citations, the point of this article was completely lost on me. This has to be one of my least favorite articles that I have read in college. Maybe I've just been lucky and read entertaining articles throughout my collegiate career, or maybe this one just sinks below the rest in the vapid pool of research articles. Nevertheless, I will try and convey some of its information on here. Theories such as the PRM discuss the 2 cognitive differences that "suggest that fear appeals incorporate different stimuli that trigger distinctive motivational and coping responses." This, and other theories attempt to calculate the efficacy of fear appeals and try and find the most effective fear persuasions. One of the more interesting points the article brings up is the curved nature of fear appeals. When the fear appeal exposes an extreme, the respondent can then see the threat as an improbability and switch into a state of denial. Just as a low threat would cause a very low reaction. The goal would be to find a middle ground that would gain the acceptance of the audience and catalyst a response from the audience. This was about the only thing that I learned from this article.
ReplyDeleteThis article seems to focus on the use of fear appeals in individuals and how they respond as well as the effects that these fear appeals show after they have been recognized. Also, I believe that one of the main ideas focus on the fact that fear appeals loose effectiveness over time. I believe the best example of this is where Ruiter talks about the use of fear appeals in using condoms to reduce the chance of spreading HIV and AIDS. Ruiter proposes that fear arousal enhances message acceptance when the message also prompts mental rehearsal of the recommended precaution that reduces fear. So using the given example above, an individual would see some sort of advertisement or something that shows that deciding not to use a condom could lead to contracting a deadly disease such as HIV or AIDS and in doing so, the individual will mentally rehearse the solution (wearing a condom) in order to reduce their fear of contracting the virus. This example focuses on the idea of the Protection Motivation Theory (PMT), which consists of Threat appraisal and coping appraisal; where individuals determine the seriousness and personal susceptibility and the effectiveness of the potential responses and their ability to undertake these potential responses towards the threat. Also, the over use of these types of threats tend to be overused, therefore, they simply tend to be looked over and forgotten by the audience that is supposed to be the target of the fear appeal.
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