Examining the Use of Forceful Language When Designing Exercise Persuasive Messages for Adults: A Test of Conceptualizing Reactance Arousal as a Two-Step Process

Abstract

This investigation tests a conceptualization of reactance as a two-step process. This conceptualization was recently tested with college students, but research testing this conceptualization among primarily adult samples does not currently exist. Psychological reactance theory (PRT) states that individuals exposed to a threat or elimination of a freedom will experience reactance and subsequently be motivated to restore the freedom. Specifically, it is hypothesized that individuals will perceive persuasive messages containing forceful language as a threat to their personal freedom, which will be followed by reactance, manifested in a latent variable composed of anger and negative cognitions. This hypothesis was tested within the context of persuasive messages aimed at encouraging members (N = 247) to participate in weight lifting or group exercise programs at a health and fitness center. Results support conceptualizing reactance as a 2-step process. In addition, results indicate that a primarily adult sample responds unfavorably to forceful persuasive messages advocating the aforementioned exercise activities. In finding support for conceptualizing reactance as a two-step process, we encourage health campaigners and PRT researchers to employ this measure to provide consistency to future PRT studies.

When Artificial Social Agents Try to Persuade People: The Role of Social Agency on the Occurrence of Psychological Reactance

“…Different from the effect of social agency on the psychological reactance measures, which was only found on the negative cognitions measure, the effect of threat to autonomy of the language in the advice was found both on the measure for negative cognitions and the measure for feelings of anger. This finding is in correspondence with earlier research [8,17,19,21,23] that indicates that the use of threatening language (threatening people's autonomy) and controlling language (using explicit directives) will diminish persuasion and enhance psychological reactance. Moreover, this finding was especially pronounced on the reactance measure of feelings of anger, but also present on the reactance measure of negative cognitions.…”

“…Moreover, this finding was especially pronounced on the reactance measure of feelings of anger, but also present on the reactance measure of negative cognitions. This difference is also found in a recent other study, which also showed stronger effects related to psychological reactance on measures of anger than on measures of negative cognitions [19].…”

“…"), or high-controlling language (e.g., "You have to save energy when using the washing machine."). The language use in the advisory texts was based on previous studies about psychological reactance [8,17,19]. For some participants, the advisory text was not accompanied by a picture (low social agency).…”

“…[6,8,9,17,19,[21][22][23]25]. This research indicates that when language becomes more controlling, people are more prone to respond in 1 The original theory of psychological reactance [3] speaks of perceived freedom instead of perceived autonomy.…”

“…Another possible explanation for the effect of social agency on psychological reactance could be that the presence of a robotic agent caused greater reactance than messages without a robot due to vividness effects. Quick and Stephenson [19] showed that the vividness of language use (i.e., words that lead to better visualization of consequences of behavior) can be perceived as threatening. For example, Quick and Stephenson used messages containing the following language use: ".…”