April 7-9, 2022 • Hyatt Regency • Lexington, KY
Communication Strategies to Promote Comprehensive Well-being
Communication Strategies to Promote Comprehensive Well-being
Abstract: Effects of Hope, Fear, and Guilt on Seasonal Influenza Prevention
Emotions affect health behavior and other persuasive outcomes. However, it is unclear which emotions influence which health behaviors or persuasive outcomes. Numerous studies examine the effects of emotions separately; however, few studies compare the persuasive effects of emotions. Knowing which emotions can best affect specific persuasive outcomes would enable us to maximize the effectiveness of our health messages. Therefore, this study explored the ability of the emotions of hope, fear, and guilt to predict persuasive outcomes related to seasonal influenza prevention. 862 U.S. adults participated in a cross-sectional survey via Amazon MTurk. Participants ranged in age from 18 to 76 years old (M = 19.1, SD = 1.26). Half the participants identified as male (n = 431, 50.0%), most of the rest identified as female (n = 424, 49.2%), and three participants identified as transgender (0.3%). Most participants identified as Caucasian-American or White (n = 630, 73.1%). Most participants had not gotten the flu shot (n = 610, 70.8%). A series of multiple regression analyses tested the effects of hope, fear, and guilt on intention to engage in prevention behaviors (e.g., get the flu shot, cover coughs, wash hands), interest in seasonal influenza prevention, interpersonal communication intention, information seeking intention, attitude toward seasonal influenza prevention, response efficacy of preventative behaviors, and social norms. Hope significantly positively predicted behavior intention (b* = .30, p < .001), interest (b* = .45, p < .001), interpersonal communication intention (b* = .43, p < .001), information seeking intention (b* = .44, p < .001), attitude (b* = .31, p < .001), response efficacy (b* = .25, p < .001), and social norms (b* = .30, p < .001). Fear significantly positively predicted behavior intention (b* = .28, p < .001), interest (b* = .24, p < .001), interpersonal communication intention (b* = .32, p < .001), information seeking intention (b* = .26, p < .001), attitude (b* = .12, p = .011), response efficacy (b* = .22, p < .001), and social norms (b* = .20, p < .001). Guilt significantly negatively predicted behavior intention (b* = -.27, p < .001), interest (b* = -.10, p = .033), response efficacy (b* = -.30, p < .001), and social norms (b* = -.17, p < .001). Guilt did not significantly predict interpersonal communication intention, information seeking intention, or attitude. Hope was the strongest predictor of all the persuasive outcomes except response efficacy, for which guilt was the stronger (but negative) predictor. This study indicates that evoking hope is likely to be more effective for persuasion than evoking fear or guilt. Fear did positively affect all the persuasion outcomes, just not as strongly as hope. Evoking guilt appears to be ineffective or detrimental. Because characteristics of the message topic and characteristics of the recommended behaviors likely affect which emotions are most persuasive, it is important to continue to test the effectiveness of hope, fear, and guilt in other contexts. This study takes a step toward identifying which emotions are most effective for influencing persuasive outcomes.