Fear appeal communication and its effects on individual and macro level. Media Use and Effects Agnieszka Siwiak Student ID 13217724 Master in European Business
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The characteristic feature of recent times is the ever increasing presence of media in our daily life. The media use and effects are of crucial importance not only for ordinary people, but also for researchers in many fields. As media evolves, new issues in terms of media use and its effects emerge. The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of the use of fear appeal in marketing messages with the emphasis on social marketing. Media effects are defined as processes and products of media influence (Fahr, 2015). They can be direct and indirect; intentional or unintentional and, what is more, they can be discussed at individual level and at macro-level (ibid., 2015). Moreover, the effects can be distinguished according to the timing (immediate and long-term effect), duration (temporary or permanent), valence (negative or positive effect), change (difference, no difference) and manifestation (observable and nonobservable results) (ibid., 2015). Media use and its effects are multifaceted and it is not easy to organize and categorize them. Nevertheless, Fahr’s (2015) Media Effects Template (MET), facilitates this task. Based on that model, it is possible to categorize the media effects in terms of the effect type and media-influenced functions, with a distinction between individual level and macro-level. For the
individual level, Fahr (2015) distinguishes six types of effects: 1.
cognitive effect – the impact of media on a person’s cognitive, mental processes or product of those processes
2.
belief effect – the creation and change of a person’s beliefs
3.
attitudinal effect – the influence on a person’s evaluative judgments
4.
affective effect – the influence on a person’s feelings
5.
physiological effect – the impact on a person’s physiological responses to stimuli
6.
behavioral effect – the impact on an individual’s behavior Going further, these effects are organized according to the four media-influence
functions that constitute the generic ways by which the media affects individuals: acquiring, triggering, altering and reinforcing (ibid., 2015). At the macro-level, the same above mentioned media effects are present, excluding the physiological effect (ibid, 2015.). Following Fahr’s model (2015), the effects for the macro-level MET are related to three macro structures: the public, institutions and the media themselves. A more detailed explanation of the effects will be provided later in this paper. 1
Fear appeal in media (especially in marketing communication) has attracted unwavering interest for some decades (Yzer, Southwell & Stephenson, 2012, p. 163). Fear appeal, on an equal footing with controversy and shock tactics, is gaining popularity and becoming more common in media communication (Jensen, Collins, 2008, p. 225). By definition, fear appeal is “a persuasive communication that attempts to arouse fear in order to promote precautionary motivation and self-protective action […]. Fear arousal is defined as an unpleasant emotional state triggered by the perception of threatening stimuli. It is assumed that such emotional states involve physiological arousal as well as cognitive, affective and behavioral responses directed toward reduction or elimination of fear.” (Ruiter, Kessels, Peters & Kok, 2014, p. 65). Fear appeal is widely adopted by commercial marketing (e.g. detergent/cleaning products, pharmaceuticals) as well as by social marketing (Yzer et al., 2012, pp. 163-164). “Fear is widely solicited by public health and medical communications practitioners but it is relevant for many other domains, such as environment, personal safety, or political choices […] fear propels people to protective action in response to perceived danger, whereas other emotions function differently: for example, happiness invites behavioral maintenance, and anger invites active attack to remove perceived obstacles.” (ibid., pp. 163-164) When discussing the effects of fear appeal in social communication, it is worthwhile to stress that many authors and researchers in that field emphasize the difficulties and problems in empirical data collection. As stated by Cho and Salmon (2007, p. 294), empirical study of the effects is limited. A similar stance is taken by Ruiter et al.(2014, p. 67). They found that during 60 years of research on the persuasive effects of fear appeals, a mere 6 studies provide highquality experiments on the relationship between the fear appeal theory and real health behavior changes. Nevertheless, this paper aims to discuss such effects based on the theoretical approach supported by empirical evidence. Researchers focus not only on proving that fear appeal affects peoples, but they also examine whether such effects are positive, negative, intended or not intended. The question can be asked whether the fear appeal effects fulfill their role (especially in social communication)? Do they change people’s cognition, beliefs, behavior, attitudes and emotions in intended, unintended, positive or negative ways? It is worth pointing out that unintended effects can also be positive (Cho and Salomon, 2007, p. 297-298). Threat appeal is mostly used in social communication in order to stop, reduce or change unwanted behaviors (Ruiter et al., 2014, p. 63). 2
As stated by Yzer et al. (2012), fear appeal effects in health communication can be organized in relation to four main theories: Fear as a Drive, Parallel Response Model (PRM), Protection Motivation Theory (PMT) and the Extended Parallel Process Model (EPPM). The Fear as a Drive theory states that threatening in social communication can lead to inducing tensions in people. In turn, people start searching for ways of eliminating these tensions, e.g. by changing behavior (ibid., pp. 165-166). The behavior can be affected in one of two directions; If the message based on a threat includes recommendations (e.g. how to avoid the HIV contagion) people are prone to imitate suggested patterns of behavior, consentaneous with the social learning theory (ibid., pp. 165-166). However, if such recommendations are not enough for reducing tensions, people take the opposite action. This can lead to self-defense (strengthening in their beliefs: “Nothing bad can happen to me”). Moreover, self-defensive response to fear arousal has been proved by neuroscientific experiences (Ruiter et al., 2014, p. 64-65; Kessels, Ruiter, Wouters & Jansma, 2014). Kessels et al. (2014) found evidence that smokers exposed to threatening commercials about the consequences of smoking are motivated to mitigate feelings of cognitive dissonance (ibid., p. 86). “According to the cognitive dissonance theory (Festinger, 1957) and Kunda’s (1990) argument for motivated reasoning, people experiencing dissonance because of their selfimage being threatened (e.g., smokers exposed to threatening health commercials about smoking) are motivated to reduce it by changing one of the implicated cognitive or behavioral elements, for example through avoidant and biased processing of presented information[…]Our results complement those reported by Kessels et al. (2010) and provide further neuroscientific support to findings in the fear appeal literature that suggest that people react defensively to threatening health information”.(ibid., pp. 8586) A similar view is held by Cho and Salmon (2007, p. 302). They refer to the so called boomerang effect, which is related to the self-defense model. In addition, they quote some empirical evidence of adverse behaviors, rather than those promoted in fear inducing messages, like increase in smoking, drinking or increase in unsafe sex (ibid., p. 302). Nevertheless, they point out that positive appeal can also lead to boomerang effect (e.g. increase of negative attitudes toward mammography among women exposed to non-fear arousal campaign) (ibid., p. 302). Additionally, people can feel they are being manipulated what in turn leads to increased anger (Yzer et al., pp. 165-166). The Fear as a Drive theory applies to changes in cognition, belief, attitudes, and consequently behavior consistent with the Fahr’s (2015) media effects framework. 3
The Parallel Response Model (PRM) (Yzer et al., 2012, p. 166) states that threat is cognitively evaluated and managed by two processes: cognitive process, described as danger control (people tend to control the fear by thinking about it and looking for ways to avoid it) and affective process, called fear control (people control fear perceived as a negative emotion). The PRM constitutes a kind of base for the Extended Parallel Process Model (EPPM) in which a fear arousing message leads to threat appraisal, and appraisal of the advised response efficacy (ibid., pp. 167-168). “First, information in the message is used to appraise the threat of the hazard, based on perceptions about the severity of the threat as well as how susceptible individuals believe the threat. The more individuals believe that the threat is severe and that they are susceptible to serious danger, the more motivated they are to begin the second appraisal, which is an evaluation of the efficacy of the recommended response. More specifically, individuals gauge the perceived effectiveness of the response (response efficacy) to avert the threat as well as their beliefs about their own ability to effectively avoid the hazard (self-efficacy).” (ibid., pp. 167-168) Simply speaking, the threat appeal message makes people aware of a danger. Thereafter, they are engaged in danger control process (Ruiter et al., 2014, p. 65). Danger control process leads to positive changes in people if they believe that the threat arousing message concerns them, and they can avert the danger (Yzer et al., 2012, pp. 167-168). The negative effects appear when people believe that the danger is severe but they do not believe they are able to avert it. This leads to fear control process and consequently to self-defensive behavior, denial, feelings of being manipulated and no changes or opposite changes in behavior (ibid., pp. 167-168). Protection Motivation Theory (PMT) gives another view on the fear appeal effects on individuals. Here exposure to the threat induces two cognitive processes: threat appraisal (estimation whether the threat is relentless for individual-severity and susceptibility) and coping appraisal (individual’s estimation of the potential response efficacy and the probability that individual is able to take such response [self-efficacy]) (Ruiter et al., 2014, p. 65). Conducted by Ruiter et al. (2014), analysis of the six meta-analyses in terms of fear appeal effects, which cover around 60 years of research in that field, validate the accuracy of the PMT and EPPM models (Ruiter et al., 2014). The effects of fear appeal on the individuals behavior can be two dimensional. On the one hand, fear arousing messages can result in no change in behavior: “Earl and Albarracin (2007) found that the presence (vs. absence) of fear-inducing arguments was associated with lower increases in knowledge and condom use, and this 4
negative effect was stronger at follow-up. The presence of HIV counseling and testing was associated with significant increases in knowledge and condom use, and this positive effect was stronger at follow-up. All these effects were stronger in populations with high HIV incidence.” (Ruiter et al., 2014, pp. 66-67). By the same token, Yzer et al. (2012) point out that promotion of the cancer screening behaviors resulted in increased anxiety, hope and reassurance. Moreover, Ruiter et al. (2014) state, based on the five meta-analyses, that the higher threat (correlated with high self-efficacy and higher response efficacy) results in increased behavioral changes. The fear appeal in social communication affects not only the individual, but also the macro level. The third-person effect (Yzer et al.,2012), desensitization (Cho &Salmon, 2007), social norming (Cho & Salmon, 2007) and system activation (Cho & Salmon, 2007) are empirically proven models of the threat arousal effects at the macro-level. The third-person theory has been confirmed by many experiments and research on the fear appeal communication and controversial products communication (Jensen & Collins, 2008; Yzer et al., 2012). As Yzer et al. argue, people, when exposed to the threat in a message, start to activate their self-serving beliefs and convince themselves that they are safe because the threat concerns others and not them. Jensen and Collins (2008) in their research found evidence of third-person effect in communication related to controversial products (indissolubly linked to the fear appeal) like cigarettes, feminine hygiene products, funeral services, gambling and political party advertising. Examined people reported higher perceived offense attributed to others than the personal offense (Jensen & Collins, 2008, p. 238). Additionally, Jensen and Collins (2008) state that the third-person effect is of crucial importance for marketing agencies because when people feel that others are more offended by the threatening and controversial advertisements than themselves, then they are more prone to make complaints to media censors. What is more, such marketing strategies can provoke anger among society and further social complaints and boycotts (Jensen & Collins, 2008, p. 225). Desensitization is another effect related to the fear appeal communication. Cho and Salmon (2007, p. 303) argue that too frequent exposure leads to trivialization of important issues like AIDS, homelessness, child abuse and violent crime. That, in turn, leads to the aforementioned desensitization toward social issues. The fear appeal message can also lead to stigmatization of some societal groups by others (Cho & Salmon, 2007, pp. 305-306). Stigmatization can occur when, based on the fear appeal, social campaigns create social norms (e.g. avoidance of risky behavior by promotion of 5
the healthy alternative) but “by the same token campaigns, via social norming, can render individuals vulnerable to shame and isolation” (Cho & Salmon, 2007, pp. 305-306). Finally, the system activation effect refers to a system of interconnected vessels, where change (e.g. in behavior) at one system level leads to change at another (Cho & Salmon, 2007, pp. 307-308). Thus, the fear inducing message which leads to change in individuals behavior can influence the macro level, such as in the example quoted by Cho and Salmon (2007): “In Japan, newspaper coverage of the effects of smoking on health showed associations with both the debate agenda of the legislative body and the actions of the administrative agencies of the nation (Sato, 2003). Negative news coverage of youth binge drinking decreased its incidences by first changing social norms and motivating policymakers in the United States to take action (Yanovitzky & Stryker, 2001).” (Cho & Salmon, 2007, p. 307). All things considered, the aforementioned examples and theories about the fear appeal effects on individuals and societies are closely linked to Fahr’s (2015) classification of media effects. Emotional states caused by fear appeal in communication messages lead to cognitive, affective and behavioral responses directed toward reduction or elimination of fear and tensions caused by the message. Changes in cognition, beliefs, attitudes, emotions and behavior (there is lack of strong evidence for physiological effects) have been noticed. There is no doubt that inducing fear, especially in social communication, results in changes at all levels of the Fahr’s MET model (Fahr, 2015). The question is whether these effects are sufficient to threaten others? As already mentioned, the increasing popularity of threat, controversy and shock tactics in marketing leads not only to attracting attention, but also affects beliefs, cognitions, attitudes, behaviors and emotions in unintended ways. Besides the observed intended effects, there is growing evidence of adverse, negative unintended effects of threat appeal communication. People interpret and perceive threat differently. It is common knowledge that social and commercial communication have mass character, not personalized. This leads to the conclusion that it is not possible to affect all people in the same, intended way. Besides there is still lack of empirical research in this field, the studies already conducted suggest that the fear appeal is not the best way to influence. It would be much better to encourage positive changes in people by smart persuasion than by fear arousal. Nevertheless, as said before, more scientific research is needed.
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References Fahr, A. (2015). Study of Media Use and Effects. Lecture at University of Fribourg.
Cho, H., & Salmon, C.T. (2007). Unintended Effects of Health Communication Campaigns. Journal of Communication 57, 293-317. doi:10.1111/j.1460-2466.2007.00344.x
Jensen, K., & Collins, S. (2008). The Third-Person Effect in Controversial Product Advertising. American Behavioral Scientist 52 (2), 225-242. doi: 10.1177/0002764208321353
Kessels, L.T.E., Ruiter, R.A.C., Wouters, L., & Jansma B.M. (2014). Neuroscientific evidence for defensive avoidance of fear appeals. International Journal of Psychology 49(2), 80–88. doi: 10.1002/ijop.12036
Ruiter, R.A.C., Kessels, L.T.E., Peters, G-J.Y., & Kok, G. (2014). Sixty years of fear appeal research: Current state of the evidence. International Journal of Psychology 49(2), 63-70. doi: 10.1002/ijop.12042
Yzer, M.C., Southwell, B.G., & Stephenson, M.T. (2012). Inducing Fear as a Public Communication Strategy. In R.E. Rice & C.K. Atkin (Eds.), Public Communication Campaigns (pp. 163-176). PA: SAGE Publications, Inc.
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