TY - JOUR
T1 - Should health communication regarding COVID-19 emphasize self- or other-focused impacts of mitigation behaviors? Insights from two message matching studies
AU - O'Dowd, Ian
AU - Joyal-Desmarais, Keven
AU - Scharmer, Alexandra
AU - Walters, Ashley
AU - Snyder, Mark
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Authors. Agricultural Economics published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of International Association of Agricultural Economists.
PY - 2023/8
Y1 - 2023/8
N2 - Mask-wearing, social distancing, and vaccination remain effective ways to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. Yet, many hesitate to enact some or all these preventive behaviors. We created three persuasive messages—framed to promote benefits to either (1) oneself, (2) close-others, or (3) distant-others—to determine whether the effectiveness of these messages varied based on personality differences (specifically independent/interdependent self-construal and chronic construal level). In two online experiments (N = 862), we measured individual differences and showed participants one of the three messages. Consistent interactions between interdependent self-construal and message conditions showed that those high in interdependent self-construal responded most positively to the self-focused messages promoting mask-wearing, social distancing, and COVID-19 vaccination. Those low in interdependent self-construal responded most negatively to the self-focused messages. Although no interaction effect was observed for independent self-construal, and inconsistent evidence emerged for construal level, other-focused messages performed either better or equally well to the self-focused messages for most participants and may thus be promising for future public health communication efforts.
AB - Mask-wearing, social distancing, and vaccination remain effective ways to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. Yet, many hesitate to enact some or all these preventive behaviors. We created three persuasive messages—framed to promote benefits to either (1) oneself, (2) close-others, or (3) distant-others—to determine whether the effectiveness of these messages varied based on personality differences (specifically independent/interdependent self-construal and chronic construal level). In two online experiments (N = 862), we measured individual differences and showed participants one of the three messages. Consistent interactions between interdependent self-construal and message conditions showed that those high in interdependent self-construal responded most positively to the self-focused messages promoting mask-wearing, social distancing, and COVID-19 vaccination. Those low in interdependent self-construal responded most negatively to the self-focused messages. Although no interaction effect was observed for independent self-construal, and inconsistent evidence emerged for construal level, other-focused messages performed either better or equally well to the self-focused messages for most participants and may thus be promising for future public health communication efforts.
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U2 - 10.1111/asap.12349
DO - 10.1111/asap.12349
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85159895873
SN - 1529-7489
VL - 23
SP - 363
EP - 392
JO - Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy
JF - Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy
IS - 2
ER -