Persuasive health messages can be framed to emphasize the benefits of adopting a health behavior (gains) or the risks of not adopting it (losses). This study examined the effects of message framing on beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors relevant to cigarette smoking. In video presentations about tobacco smoking, visual images and auditory voiceover content were framed either as gains or losses, yielding 4 message conditions. Undergraduates ( N = 437) attending a public university in New England were assigned randomly to view one of these messages. Gain-framed messages about smoking in visual and auditory modalities shifted smoking-related beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors in the direction of avoidance and cessation. Health-communication experts, when promoting prevention behaviors like smoking avoidance or cessation, may wish to diverge from the tradition of using lossframed messages and fear appeals in this domain, and instead consider using gain-framed appeals that present the advantages of not smoking.Persuasive messages encouraging smoking cessation are usually designed to elicit feelings of threat or fear by presenting the negative consequences of cigarette smoking. For example, the Surgeon General's warnings on cigarette packs emphasize the health dangers associated with smoking (e.g., emphysema, heart disease, death).
With increasing urbanization in China, many cities are facing serious environmental problems due to continuous and substantial increase in automobile transportation. It is becoming imperative to examine effective ways to reduce individual automobile use to facilitate sustainable transportation behavior. Empirical, theory-based research on sustainable transportation in China is limited. In this research, we propose an integrated model based on the norm activation model and the theory of planned behavior by combining normative and rational factors to predict individuals’ intention to reduce car use. Data from a survey of 600 car drivers in China’s three metropolitan areas was used to test the proposed model and hypotheses. Results showed that three variables, perceived norm of car-transport reduction, attitude towards reduction, and perceived behavior control over car-transport reduction, significantly affected the intention to reduce car-transport. Personal norms mediated the relationship between awareness of consequences of car-transport, ascription of responsibility of car-transport, perceived subjective norm for car-transport reduction, and intention to reduce car-transport. The results of this research not only contribute to theory development in the area of sustainable transportation behavior, but also provide a theoretical frame of reference for relevant policy-makers in urban transport management.
We exposed male and female undergraduates to a horror movie in the presence of a same-age, opposite-gender companion of low or high initial appeal who expressed mastery, affective indifference, or distress. Measures were obtained for the subjects' affective reactions to the movie, the companion's physical appeal, the companion's personality traits, the companion's desirability as a working partner, and the subjects' tendency to acquiesce to apparently erroneous contentions on the part of the companion. We found that men enjoyed the movie most in the company of a distressed woman and least in the company of a mastering woman. Women, in contrast, enjoyed the movie most in the company of a mastering man and least in the company of a distressed man. The intensity of distress in response to the movie followed the same pattern. Mastery did not enhance the female companions' physical appeal. However, it significantly enhanced that of the low-appeal male companion. This companion also benefited from the display of mastery in that pronounced positive traits were ascribed to him. On the female side, in contrast, it was the highly attractive companion who showed a comparable gain in positive traits. The display of distress in response to horror reduced the desirability of both male and female companions as working mates. In working together, female subjects showed a clear tendency to acquiesce to assertions by their male companions who had shown mastery of horror. The findings were considered consistent with predictions from a gender-role socialization model of affect.This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.