Background Exposure to conflicting health information can produce negative affective and cognitiv... more Background Exposure to conflicting health information can produce negative affective and cognitive responses, including confusion and backlash, and the effects of this exposure can even “carry over” and reduce people’s receptivity to subsequent messages about health behaviors for which there is scientific consensus. What is not known is whether certain population subgroups are more vulnerable to such carryover effects. Aims This study investigates whether carryover effects of exposure to conflicting information are moderated by two factors, trust in news media and research literacy, testing the hypothesis that lower trust and higher literacy could protect against such effects. Method The analysis draws on data from a longitudinal population-based experiment ( N = 2,716), in which participants were randomly assigned to view health news stories and social media posts that either did or did not feature conflicting information, and subsequently exposed to ads from existing health campai...
ABSTRACT U.S. college students are disproportionally affected by depression but typically do not ... more ABSTRACT U.S. college students are disproportionally affected by depression but typically do not seek help. To advance understanding of the role of health messages in shaping college students’ help-seeking intentions, we used a reasoned action approach to experimentally investigate help-seeking intentions for depressive symptoms. Due to negative interpretation biases among those who suffer from depression, scholars have previously warned against attempts to decrease feelings of responsibility for one’s depression in health messages. We tested the determinants of help-seeking intentions as a function of exposure to depression help-seeking messages that differed in responsibility cues. Findings revealed that in our sample low responsibility health message framing did not affect determinants of help-seeking intentions. We identified instrumental attitude (β = .53) and descriptive norms (β = .24) as determinants of intentions to seek help (R2 = .42) across message conditions and across levels of depression. These findings indicate potentially important targets for messages that seek to increase help-seeking among depressed college students.
This study examined the role of affect and perceived message effectiveness in understanding the e... more This study examined the role of affect and perceived message effectiveness in understanding the effect of antidrug public service announcements on attitudes and intention toward marijuana use. Drawing on theory and previous research we proposed a model that assumes antidrug ...
Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Communication, 2017
The reasoned action approach is a behavioral theory that has been developed since the 1960s in a ... more The reasoned action approach is a behavioral theory that has been developed since the 1960s in a sequence of reformulations. It comprises the theory of reasoned action; the theory of planned behavior; the integrative model of behavioral prediction; and its current formulation, the reasoned action approach to explaining and changing behavior. Applied to health messages, reasoned action theory proposes a behavioral process that can be described in terms of four parts. First, together with a multitude of other potential sources, health messages are a source of beliefs about outcomes of a particular health behavior, about the extent of social support for performing that behavior from specific other people, and about factors that may hamper or facilitate engaging in the behavior. Second, these beliefs inform attitude toward performing the behavior, perceptions of normative influence, and perceptions of control with respect to performing the behavior. Third, attitude, perceived norms, and...
Conflicting information surrounding COVID-19 abounds, from disagreement over the effectiveness of... more Conflicting information surrounding COVID-19 abounds, from disagreement over the effectiveness of face masks in preventing viral transmission to competing claims about the promise of certain treatments. Despite the potential for conflicting information about COVID-19 to produce adverse public health effects, little is known about whether the U.S. public notices this information, and whether certain population subgroups are particularly likely to do so. To address these questions, we fielded a nationally representative survey of U.S. adults in late April 2020 (N = 1,007). Results showed substantial self-reported exposure to conflicting information about COVID-19, with nearly 75% of participants reporting having recently heard such information from health experts, politicians, and/or others. Participants perceived disagreement across a range of COVID-19-related issues, though from politicians more than health experts. Factors including political affiliation, information source use, and personal experience with COVID-19 were associated with perceptions of disagreement. Future research should consider potential cognitive and behavioral consequences of such perceptions.
In this study we integrated insights from research on cognitive biases in depression with the rea... more In this study we integrated insights from research on cognitive biases in depression with the reasoned action approach to predicting and changing behavior (RAA) with the goal of identifying implications for help-seeking messaging for college students with varying levels of depression. Findings from a sample of 374 U.S. college students support the ability of RAA to explain help-seeking intentions for non-depressed, mildly depressed students, and moderate to severely depressed students. More severe depression was associated with less favorable attitudes, perceived norms, perceived capacity, and intention; changes in the relative strength of attitudes, perceived norms, and perceived capacity in explaining help-seeking intentions; stronger expectations of negative outcomes of help-seeking and weaker expectations of positive outcomes; and to some extent, stronger expectations of negative outcomes for oneself than for others. These findings underscore that depressed students construe help-seeking differently than non-depressed students, and that depressed and non-depressed students need different help-seeking messages.
OBJECTIVES Whether people benefit from self-affirmation in overcoming resistance to health messag... more OBJECTIVES Whether people benefit from self-affirmation in overcoming resistance to health messages may depend on their level of self-esteem. However, extant theories offer rival hypotheses about the role of self-esteem. We pitted these hypotheses against each other, building on the argument that how self-esteem shapes self-affirmation effects may depend on how and when people self-affirm. DESIGN A 3 (Self-affirmation type: value essay, attribute scale, control task) by 2 (Timing: pre-message, post-message) plus 1 (message-only) experimental, between-subjects design. METHODS Participants (N = 422) completed a value essay, an attribute scale, a control task, or no task, either before or after reading a message about health risks of excessive drinking. Participants then completed defensiveness and message acceptance measures. RESULTS Self-esteem moderated self-affirmation effects across different types and timing of self-affirmation. While participants with relatively high self-esteem consistently benefited from self-affirmation, participants with relatively low self-esteem experienced adverse effects from self-affirmation. Self-affirmed participants with high self-esteem showed lower psychological discomfort, lower personal risk discounting, and higher message acceptance than unaffirmed participants, while self-affirmed participants with low self-esteem showed higher psychological discomfort, higher personal risk discounting, and lower message acceptance than unaffirmed participants. CONCLUSIONS These findings support the proposition that self-esteem serves as affirmational resources, which implies that self-affirmation interventions to reduce defensiveness to health messages may be beneficial for people with high self-esteem but less so for people with lower self-esteem. Similar to much other self-esteem research, self-esteem was negatively skewed, which warrants caution in generalization of the findings across all levels of self-esteem.
Background Although there is growing theoretical and empirical support for the proposition that m... more Background Although there is growing theoretical and empirical support for the proposition that media exposure to conflicting health information negatively influences public understanding and behavior, few studies have causally linked exposure to conflict with undesirable outcomes. Such outcomes might be particularly likely in the context of mammography, given widespread media attention to conflicting recommendations about the age at and frequency with which average-risk women should be screened for breast cancer. Purpose The current study tests whether exposure to conflicting information about mammography negatively influences women’s affective and cognitive responses and examines whether effects vary by socioeconomic position. Methods We conducted an online survey experiment in 2016 with a population-based sample of U.S. women aged 35–55 (N = 1,474). Participants were randomly assigned to one of four conditions that differed in the level of conflict about mammography presented in ...
INTRODUCTION Why do we study health communication? Why are health messages typically a central co... more INTRODUCTION Why do we study health communication? Why are health messages typically a central component of health interventions? For many of us an obvious part of the answer to these questions is that we have an interest in improving public health, and specifically, that we believe that communication has the potential to improve health behavior. Considering that there is evidence that interventions do not always produce desired effects or can be even countereffective one could wonder whether this is a realistic belief. While there are many reasons why a particular health message may not move people to behavior change as intended, health messages in fact can positively influence behavior change. A primary contributing factor in this regard is the correspondence between the message and the recipient. Maximizing the message– recipient match requires a good understanding of why people engage in healthy or risky behavior. A conceptual framework that can account for different health beha...
Background Exposure to conflicting health information can produce negative affective and cognitiv... more Background Exposure to conflicting health information can produce negative affective and cognitive responses, including confusion and backlash, and the effects of this exposure can even “carry over” and reduce people’s receptivity to subsequent messages about health behaviors for which there is scientific consensus. What is not known is whether certain population subgroups are more vulnerable to such carryover effects. Aims This study investigates whether carryover effects of exposure to conflicting information are moderated by two factors, trust in news media and research literacy, testing the hypothesis that lower trust and higher literacy could protect against such effects. Method The analysis draws on data from a longitudinal population-based experiment ( N = 2,716), in which participants were randomly assigned to view health news stories and social media posts that either did or did not feature conflicting information, and subsequently exposed to ads from existing health campai...
ABSTRACT U.S. college students are disproportionally affected by depression but typically do not ... more ABSTRACT U.S. college students are disproportionally affected by depression but typically do not seek help. To advance understanding of the role of health messages in shaping college students’ help-seeking intentions, we used a reasoned action approach to experimentally investigate help-seeking intentions for depressive symptoms. Due to negative interpretation biases among those who suffer from depression, scholars have previously warned against attempts to decrease feelings of responsibility for one’s depression in health messages. We tested the determinants of help-seeking intentions as a function of exposure to depression help-seeking messages that differed in responsibility cues. Findings revealed that in our sample low responsibility health message framing did not affect determinants of help-seeking intentions. We identified instrumental attitude (β = .53) and descriptive norms (β = .24) as determinants of intentions to seek help (R2 = .42) across message conditions and across levels of depression. These findings indicate potentially important targets for messages that seek to increase help-seeking among depressed college students.
This study examined the role of affect and perceived message effectiveness in understanding the e... more This study examined the role of affect and perceived message effectiveness in understanding the effect of antidrug public service announcements on attitudes and intention toward marijuana use. Drawing on theory and previous research we proposed a model that assumes antidrug ...
Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Communication, 2017
The reasoned action approach is a behavioral theory that has been developed since the 1960s in a ... more The reasoned action approach is a behavioral theory that has been developed since the 1960s in a sequence of reformulations. It comprises the theory of reasoned action; the theory of planned behavior; the integrative model of behavioral prediction; and its current formulation, the reasoned action approach to explaining and changing behavior. Applied to health messages, reasoned action theory proposes a behavioral process that can be described in terms of four parts. First, together with a multitude of other potential sources, health messages are a source of beliefs about outcomes of a particular health behavior, about the extent of social support for performing that behavior from specific other people, and about factors that may hamper or facilitate engaging in the behavior. Second, these beliefs inform attitude toward performing the behavior, perceptions of normative influence, and perceptions of control with respect to performing the behavior. Third, attitude, perceived norms, and...
Conflicting information surrounding COVID-19 abounds, from disagreement over the effectiveness of... more Conflicting information surrounding COVID-19 abounds, from disagreement over the effectiveness of face masks in preventing viral transmission to competing claims about the promise of certain treatments. Despite the potential for conflicting information about COVID-19 to produce adverse public health effects, little is known about whether the U.S. public notices this information, and whether certain population subgroups are particularly likely to do so. To address these questions, we fielded a nationally representative survey of U.S. adults in late April 2020 (N = 1,007). Results showed substantial self-reported exposure to conflicting information about COVID-19, with nearly 75% of participants reporting having recently heard such information from health experts, politicians, and/or others. Participants perceived disagreement across a range of COVID-19-related issues, though from politicians more than health experts. Factors including political affiliation, information source use, and personal experience with COVID-19 were associated with perceptions of disagreement. Future research should consider potential cognitive and behavioral consequences of such perceptions.
In this study we integrated insights from research on cognitive biases in depression with the rea... more In this study we integrated insights from research on cognitive biases in depression with the reasoned action approach to predicting and changing behavior (RAA) with the goal of identifying implications for help-seeking messaging for college students with varying levels of depression. Findings from a sample of 374 U.S. college students support the ability of RAA to explain help-seeking intentions for non-depressed, mildly depressed students, and moderate to severely depressed students. More severe depression was associated with less favorable attitudes, perceived norms, perceived capacity, and intention; changes in the relative strength of attitudes, perceived norms, and perceived capacity in explaining help-seeking intentions; stronger expectations of negative outcomes of help-seeking and weaker expectations of positive outcomes; and to some extent, stronger expectations of negative outcomes for oneself than for others. These findings underscore that depressed students construe help-seeking differently than non-depressed students, and that depressed and non-depressed students need different help-seeking messages.
OBJECTIVES Whether people benefit from self-affirmation in overcoming resistance to health messag... more OBJECTIVES Whether people benefit from self-affirmation in overcoming resistance to health messages may depend on their level of self-esteem. However, extant theories offer rival hypotheses about the role of self-esteem. We pitted these hypotheses against each other, building on the argument that how self-esteem shapes self-affirmation effects may depend on how and when people self-affirm. DESIGN A 3 (Self-affirmation type: value essay, attribute scale, control task) by 2 (Timing: pre-message, post-message) plus 1 (message-only) experimental, between-subjects design. METHODS Participants (N = 422) completed a value essay, an attribute scale, a control task, or no task, either before or after reading a message about health risks of excessive drinking. Participants then completed defensiveness and message acceptance measures. RESULTS Self-esteem moderated self-affirmation effects across different types and timing of self-affirmation. While participants with relatively high self-esteem consistently benefited from self-affirmation, participants with relatively low self-esteem experienced adverse effects from self-affirmation. Self-affirmed participants with high self-esteem showed lower psychological discomfort, lower personal risk discounting, and higher message acceptance than unaffirmed participants, while self-affirmed participants with low self-esteem showed higher psychological discomfort, higher personal risk discounting, and lower message acceptance than unaffirmed participants. CONCLUSIONS These findings support the proposition that self-esteem serves as affirmational resources, which implies that self-affirmation interventions to reduce defensiveness to health messages may be beneficial for people with high self-esteem but less so for people with lower self-esteem. Similar to much other self-esteem research, self-esteem was negatively skewed, which warrants caution in generalization of the findings across all levels of self-esteem.
Background Although there is growing theoretical and empirical support for the proposition that m... more Background Although there is growing theoretical and empirical support for the proposition that media exposure to conflicting health information negatively influences public understanding and behavior, few studies have causally linked exposure to conflict with undesirable outcomes. Such outcomes might be particularly likely in the context of mammography, given widespread media attention to conflicting recommendations about the age at and frequency with which average-risk women should be screened for breast cancer. Purpose The current study tests whether exposure to conflicting information about mammography negatively influences women’s affective and cognitive responses and examines whether effects vary by socioeconomic position. Methods We conducted an online survey experiment in 2016 with a population-based sample of U.S. women aged 35–55 (N = 1,474). Participants were randomly assigned to one of four conditions that differed in the level of conflict about mammography presented in ...
INTRODUCTION Why do we study health communication? Why are health messages typically a central co... more INTRODUCTION Why do we study health communication? Why are health messages typically a central component of health interventions? For many of us an obvious part of the answer to these questions is that we have an interest in improving public health, and specifically, that we believe that communication has the potential to improve health behavior. Considering that there is evidence that interventions do not always produce desired effects or can be even countereffective one could wonder whether this is a realistic belief. While there are many reasons why a particular health message may not move people to behavior change as intended, health messages in fact can positively influence behavior change. A primary contributing factor in this regard is the correspondence between the message and the recipient. Maximizing the message– recipient match requires a good understanding of why people engage in healthy or risky behavior. A conceptual framework that can account for different health beha...
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