Don't Let the Flu Catch You: Agency Assignment in Printed Educational Materials About the H1N1 Influenza Virus

Abstract

In English and in other languages, the agency for viral transmission can be grammatically assigned to people (e.g., Thousands may contract H1N1) or to the virus itself (e.g., H1N1 may infect thousands). These assignment options shape different conceptions of transmission as attributable either to social contact within one's control or to pursuit of an active predator. The authors tested the effect of agency assignment and agentic images on young adults' (N = 246) reactions to educational materials about H1N1 influenza. The authors hypothesized that assigning agency to the virus would heighten perceived severity and personal susceptibility relative to human agency assignment. Results were consistent with this hypothesis, indicating that virus agency increased perceptions of severity, personal susceptibility, and reported intentions to seek vaccination relative to human agency. The image manipulation did not directly affect these factors. The findings suggest that strategic agency assignment can improve the effectiveness of educational materials about influenza and other health threats.

Bacteria as Bullies: Effects of Linguistic Agency Assignment in Health Message

“…As in our initial exploration of this issue (McGlone et al, 2013), we found that individuals believed themselves to be more susceptible to a health threat, and perceived the threat itself as more serious, when agency was assigned to the threat rather than to humans. This agency effect has now been demonstrated for both viral and bacterial risks.…”

“…Third, in the present study we examined the encoding of agency in language alone. The potential use of agentic images to reinforce linguistic agency remains understudied (McGlone et al, 2013). Fourth, it would be useful to examine if prior knowledge about a health threat moderates the effects of linguistic agency assignment.…”

“…The questionnaire consisted of items adapted from past research (McGlone et al, 2013;Witte et al, 2001) to assess susceptibility to the health threat (three items), severity of the health threat (three items), fear arousal (three items), response efficacy (three items), self-efficacy (three items), and behavioral intention to adopt the recommendations in the flyer (two items). Responses were made on 9-point scales.…”

“…All languages provide communicators with lexical and grammatical choices for describing events. One of these choices is agency assignment, which we have defined as the ascription of action or change to one or more entities involved in the event (McGlone, Bell, Zaitchik, & McGlynn, 2013;McGlone & Harding, 1998). Take, for example, the case of a health professional charged with developing patient education materials or campaign messages on the topic of genital HPV infections.…”

“…We recently took our first step toward an understanding of how linguistic agency assignment affects people's perceptions of health messages (McGlone et al, 2013). Downloaded by [University of Saskatchewan Library] at 18:28 02 February 2015…”