When people are confronted with health proposals during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, it has been suggested that fear of COVID-19 can serve protective functions and ensure public health compliance. However, health proposal repetition and its perceived efficacy also influence the behavior intention toward the proposal, which has not yet been confirmed in the COVID-19 context. The present study aims to examine whether the extended parallel process model (EPPM) can be generalized to a naturalistic context like the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, we will explore how repetition of a health proposal is involved with the EPPM. In this study, two groups of participants are exposed to the same health proposal related to COVID-19, where one group is exposed once and another group twice. They then fill out a questionnaire consisting of items concerning behavior intention and adapted from the Risk Behavior Diagnosis Scale. Structural equation modeling will be used to determine the multivariate associations between the variables. We predict that repetition of the health proposal will associate with response efficacy (i.e., a belief about the effectiveness of the health proposal in deterring the threat) and perceived susceptibility (i.e., a belief about the risk of experiencing the threat). It is also predicted that following the EPPM, behavior intention will associate with both perceived efficacy of the health proposal, which will underlie response efficacy, and perceived threat of COVID-19, which will underlie perceived susceptibility. We will discuss the process, based on the model, where health message repetition affects behavior intention during the COVID-19 pandemic.

When people are confronted with health proposals during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, it has been suggested that fear of COVID-19 can serve protective functions and ensure public health compliance. However, health proposal repetition and its perceived efficacy also influence the behavior intention toward the proposal, which has not yet been confirmed in the COVID-19 context. The present study examined whether the extended parallel process model (EPPM) could be generalized to a naturalistic context like the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, we explored how repetition of a health proposal is involved with the EPPM. In this study, two groups of participants were exposed to the same health proposal related to COVID-19, where one group was exposed once and another group twice. Participants then filled out a questionnaire consisting of items concerning behavior intention and adapted from the Risk Behavior Diagnosis Scale. Structural equation modeling was used to determine the multivariate associations between the variables. Although the results showed that behavior intention is predicted by perceived efficacy, no significant influence of perceived threat was detected. Furthermore, no significant effect of repetition was found toward either response efficacy or perceived susceptibility. These findings indicate that to promote health compliance during the COVID-19 pandemic, it is more efficient to focus on health proposals’ perceived efficacy rather than the disease’s perceived threat. For future health communication research, the present study suggests improved analysis strategies and repeated manipulation of messages.

Different ways of description can easily influence people’s evaluations and behaviors. A previous study by Bryan and colleagues suggested that subtle linguistic differences in ethical reminders can differentially prevent readers’ unethical behavior. The present study aims to replicate the previous finding in the Japanese context, additionally exploring the influence of unfamiliar instruction words that capture participants’ attention. In two experiments, which are planned to be conducted online, participants are asked to make 10 coin-tosses and report the number of “heads” results, indicating the amount of money that they can earn. We will manipulate instructions (“Don’t cheat” vs. “Don’t be a cheater” vs. baseline as a control) for each participant group, including nearly 270 participants (Experiment 1). Next, we will conduct an extended experiment with an additional task in which more attention is directed toward the text (Experiment 2). Through these registered experiments, we examine the credibility of the previous finding that type of instruction affects the occurrence of unethical behaviors.

Different ways of description can easily influence people’s evaluations and behaviors. A previous study by Bryan and colleagues suggested that subtle linguistic differences in ethical reminders can differentially prevent readers’ unethical behavior. The present study aims to replicate the previous finding in the Japanese context, additionally exploring the influence of unfamiliar instruction words that capture participants’ attention. In two experiments, which are planned to be conducted online, participants are asked to make 10 coin-tosses and report the number of “heads” results, indicating the amount of money that they can earn. We will manipulate instructions (“Don’t cheat” vs. “Don’t be a cheater” vs. baseline as a control) for each participant group, including nearly 270 participants (Experiment 1). Next, we will conduct an extended experiment with an additional task in which more attention is directed toward the text (Experiment 2). Through these registered experiments, we examine the credibility of the previous finding that type of instruction affects the occurrence of unethical behaviors.

Different ways of description can easily influence people’s evaluation and behaviors. A previous study suggested that subtle linguistic differences in ethical reminder instructions can cause differences in preventing readers’ unethical behavior. The present study aims to replicate the previous finding by Bryan and his colleagues (2013) in the Japanese context, additionally exploring the influence of unfamiliar instructions that capture participants’ attention. In two experiments, which are planned to be conducted online, participants are asked to make 10 coin-tosses and report the number of “heads,” indicating the amount of money that could be earned. We will manipulate instructions (“Don’t cheat” vs. “Don’t be a cheater” vs. no instruction as a control) for each participant group including nearly 270 participants (Experiment 1). Next, we will conduct an extended experiment with an additional task in which more attention is directed toward the text (Experiment 2). Through these registered experiments, we examine the credibility of the previous finding that type of instruction affects the occurrence of unethical behaviors.