Health Psychology

1. Health Psychology Designing persuasive interventions � part 1 PY 470 Hudiburg

2. Are Appeals Effective? Factual information public service announcements � 51% of 127 PSA revealed factual information (Freimuth et al., 1990) C. Everett Koop as surgery general mail pamphlets to all U.S. households in 1980s. Information only is not a sufficient motivator to change behavior (Leventhal et al., 1965 � none of the students got a tetanus shot after receiving information) http://www.retrojunk.com/details_commercial/2904/

3. Are Appeals Effective? Emotional appeals Deal with the consequences of the behavior Emotional appeals can use positive appeals. Positive emotions are expressed.

4. Are Appeals Effective? Emotional appeals the use of fear is common in Public Service Annoucements (PSAs). Negative stimuli are use to imply the threat of danger. Sometimes graphic images are used in some PSAs. Freimuth et al. (1990) found that 26% of PSAs on television used fear. It is questioned whether fear appeals work. Evidence suggests that they do not, an example is the DARE program has little effect on preventing or reducing drug use.

5. Are Appeals Effective? http://www.retrojunk.com/details_commercial/5648/ http://www.retrojunk.com/details_commercial/5593/

6. Emotional Appeal Appeal to Fear Some program using fear can be effect, like reducing or stopping smoking after watching a scary video on lung cancer. In the Sutton and Eiser (1984) 86% of the participants reported trying to stop or cut down smoking. But long term effects are questionable � Box 13.2, p. 530. One of the questions is how the target for the PSA might evaluate risks. For example, Halpern (1994) found that heavy smokers evaluated their risks as lower than short-term smokers.

7. Are emotional appeals effective? Appeal to Fear What tends to make fear message work? Janis (1967) � (Figure 13.1, p.531) study the effects of levels of fear in Ads and effects of fear level, perception of threat, and tendency for action. The results, show in the next slide, are that medium threat ads are more effective.

8. Are emotional appeals effective? Janis (1967) Figure 13.1, p. 531

9. Are emotional appeals effective? Appeal to Fear When creating fear it is important to give the person a specific strategy for handling the anxiety that has been created. It is important to offer strategies to deal with the behavior. Leventhal et al. (1965) found that 27.6% of students who received a fear message with instructions on how to get a tetanus shot got the vaccination, while only 3.3% who only got the fear message got a vaccination. Appeals to fear tend to focus on the short-term consequences. Some target audiences for the persuasion, like teen-agers aren�t concerned with the long-term � Box 13.3, p. 533. � problems with off hours broadcast of PSAs. Some fear appeals may work if they force the listener to imagine he/she has a disease like AIDS, this might lead to a heighten sense of vulnerability to the disease. The behavioral response model shown next shows the possible effect.

10. Behavioral Response Model

11. Are emotional appeals effective? http://www.retrojunk.com/details_commercial/2826/ http://www.retrojunk.com/details_commercial/2115/ http://www.retrojunk.com/details_commercial/2849/

12. How effective are interventions based in psychological theories? Prospect theory Decision are made based on cost versus benefits. The study of the �framing effect� of message from Tversky & Kahneman (1981) heuristics research. The original research used physicians and they tended to chose the program that was stated in terms of �lives saved� than �lives lost�. If you take chemotherapy, you�ll lose your hair. (People will respond cautiously) If you take the medication for high blood pressure, you�ll be OK. (People will go for it)

13. How effective are interventions based in psychological theories? Prospect theory People should be more persuaded to engage in behavior to detect a problem when stated negatively � Table 13.2, p. 535 � Banks et al. (1995) found that 66.2% of the women who received loss frame got a mammogram 1 year later as compared to 51.3% who received the gain frame. Gain-framed messages are more effective in promoting prevention behaviors than loss frame. Studies for use of condoms (Linville et al., 1993), wearing sunscreen (Detweiler et al., 1999), and use a particular brand framed with higher success rate were used by students (Linville, et al., 1997). Figure 13.2, p. 538 presents a graph of McNeil et al. (1982) study for framing effects and radiation treatment for cancer. Which treatment would you choose? Box 13.4, p. 537

14. How effective are interventions based in psychological theories? Cognitive dissonance theory Festinger�s theory predicts that people are motivated to reduce dissonance when there is a perceive discrepancy between components of attitudes. Stone et al. (1994) study of 72 sexually active college student. The study created cognitive dissonance situation by publicly advocating a position different their past behaviors (to use condom for safe sex but have past behavior that failed to use them). The student in the public dissonance condition bought condoms at higher percent (83%) than other groups in the study. Photo 13.1, p. 540 Other studies have used the principles of cognitive dissonance with eating disorders. Stice et al. (2002) found with 148 adolescences that a dissonance-based intervention yielded lower reported bulimic symptoms.

15. How effective are interventions based in psychological theories? Attribution theory Theory developed by Harold Kelly (1967) that behavior is caused either by internal or external causes. Internal motives tend to maintain behaviors over time, especially health behaviors. External motives for behaviors are associated with non compliance to health recommendations. Persuasive health messages should focus on internal motives of behaviors. Rothman et al. (1993) found in a study with 197 women, that those women who listened to internal tape that emphasized one responsibility to get a mammogram were slightly more effective than two other conditions (external and information) in influencing women to get a mammogram.

16. End of Part 1 http://www.retrojunk.com/details_commercial/80/ http://www.retrojunk.com/details_commercial/4874/ http://www.retrojunk.com/details_commercial/2433/ http://www.retrojunk.com/details_commercial/383/