Measuring defensive responses to threatening messages: a meta-analysis of measures

Good, Anna; Abraham, Charles

doi:10.1080/17437190802280889

Cited by 78 publications

(75 citation statements)

References 64 publications

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“…They tended to consider irrelevant the extreme health and risk images used in some alcohol campaigns. This corresponds with research showing that fear appeals must be carefully constructed, because unless people feel motivated to change their behaviour and possess the skills to do so, shocking images may lead people to deny, rather than tackle, threats (Good & Abraham, 2007;Ruiter, Abraham, & Kok, 2001).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 50%

‘Drinking is our modern way of bonding’: Young people’s beliefs about interventions to encourage moderate drinking

Visser

Wheeler

Abraham

et al. 2013

Psychology & Health

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Efforts to discourage excessive alcohol use among young people can only be effective if the target audience is exposed to, attends to, and comprehends key messages. The aim of this study was to examine age and sex differences in drinking motives to better inform development of targeted interventions to reduce alcohol-related harm. Thirty individual interviews and 12 group interviews were conducted with English 13-25 year olds. Interviewees gave multiple motivations for drinking - especially those related to image and reputation, and played down the health implications of heavy drinking. Negative aspects of drinking - caring for drunk friends, being cared for when drunk and suffering through hangovers with friends - were considered to offer opportunities for closer interpersonal bonding than other social activities. Respondents distanced themselves from 'problem' drinkers, but disapproved of others' problematic drinking or antisocial behaviour. Narrative messages demonstrating the social consequences of excessive consumption were preferred to single, static messages emphasising risk or harm. Interviewees noted that interventions must use an engaging tone or pitch: they considered many campaigns to be patronising or preaching. A lack of consensus between age and sex groups highlighted a need for multifaceted, multi-modal approaches that utilise mobile technologies and new media.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 50%

‘Drinking is our modern way of bonding’: Young people’s beliefs about interventions to encourage moderate drinking

Visser

Wheeler

Abraham

et al. 2013

Psychology & Health

Self Cite

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“…Indeed, considering issues relating to ill health poses a great threat to feelings of adequacy (Cohen & Sherman, 2014;Greenberg, Solomon, Pyszczynski, 1997). There is much research evidence suggesting that individuals often process personally relevant health-risk information defensively (Good & Abraham, 2007). For example, when exposed to a personally relevant and threatening health-risk message, individuals have been found to respond by denying personal susceptibility and risk (Brown & Smith, 2007;Stuteville, 1970), becoming more critical of the threatening message (Liberman & Chaiken, 1992), rating the message as less accurate (Croyle, Sun & Louise, 1993) and taking less time to read the message (Brown & Locker, 2009).…”

Section: Application Of Sat To Personally Relevant Health-risk Informmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Such defensive responses can potentially limit the efficacy of health promotion campaigns. Indeed, research has frequently reported that individuals who are at greatest risk of engaging in health-detrimental behaviours, i.e., those whom the health promotion campaigns are targeting, are the ones who are most likely to respond defensively to personally relevant health-risk information (Block & Williams, 2006;Good & Abraham, 2007;Keller, 1999;Sherman, Nelson & Steele, 2000;van Riet & Ruiter, 2011).…”

Section: Application Of Sat To Personally Relevant Health-risk Informmentioning

confidence: 99%

The moderating impact of self‐esteem on self‐affirmation effects

Düring

Jessop

2014

British J Health Psychol

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Objectives This study explored whether self‐esteem would moderate the effectiveness of a self‐affirmation manipulation at increasing openness to personally relevant health‐risk information. Design The study employed a prospective experimental design. Method Participants (N = 328) completed either a self‐affirmation manipulation or a control task, prior to reading information detailing the health‐related consequences of taking insufficient exercise. They then completed a series of measures assessing their cognitions towards exercise and their derogation of the information. Exercise behaviour was assessed at 1‐week follow‐up. Results Self‐esteem moderated the impact of self‐affirmation on the majority of outcomes. For participants with low self‐esteem, the self‐affirmation manipulation resulted in more positive attitudes and intentions towards exercise, together with lower levels of derogation of the health‐risk information. By contrast, there was no effect of the self‐affirmation manipulation on outcomes for participants with high self‐esteem. Conclusion Findings suggest that self‐affirmation manipulations might be of particular benefit for those with low self‐esteem in terms of promoting openness towards health‐risk information. This is promising from a health promotion perspective, as individuals with low self‐esteem often represent those most in need of intervention. What is already known on this subject? Self‐affirmation has been shown to result in more open processing of personally relevant health‐risk information. Individuals low in self‐esteem tend to process such information more defensively than those high in self‐esteem. What does this study add? It explores whether self‐esteem moderates the impact of self‐affirmation on responses to health‐risk information. Findings suggest that individuals with low self‐esteem benefit most from the self‐affirmation manipulation. This has important applied implications, as individuals with low self‐esteem may be most in need of intervention.

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“…However, because people are typically motivated to retain their existing beliefs 81 , and because safety concerns for self and close others are a strong motivational forces, using strategies to defend their beliefs is more likely than abandoning or revising them. For instance, people may intentionally avoid threatening information about climate change 82 or avoid making inferences about its personal relevance 83 . Another strategy that people may use to deal with threatening messages is to question or even reject them 70,81 (i.e., they may adopt sceptical beliefs about climate change; see for example ref.…”

Section: Reacting To Threatsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Psychological responses to the proximity of climate change

et al. 2015

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A frequent suggestion to increase individuals' willingness to take action on climate change and to support relevant policies is to highlight its proximal consequences, that is, consequences that are close in space and time. However, previous studies that have tested this proximising approach have not revealed the expected positive effects on individual action and support for addressing climate change. We present three lines of psychological reasoning that provide compelling arguments as to why highlighting proximal impacts of climate change might not be as effective a way to increase individual mitigation and adaptation efforts as is often assumed. Our contextualisation of the proximising approach within established psychological research suggests that, depending on the particular theoretical perspective one takes to this issue, and on specific individual characteristics suggested by these perspectives, proximising can bring about the intended positive effects, can have no (visible) effect, or can even backfire. Thus, the effects of proximising are much more complex than is commonly assumed. Revealing this complexity contributes to a refined theoretical understanding of the role psychological distance plays in the context of climate change and opens up further avenues for future research and for interventions. KeywordsPsychological distance, personal experience, place attachment, threat, risk perception, defensiveness, mitigation, adaptation 3 Research on public perceptions of climate change often shows that people, at least in Western countries, typically perceive climate change as a distant threat, as something that affects strangers, and as something that happens in remote times and places, rather than in the here and now [1][2][3][4][5][6][7] (for an exception, see ref. 8 ). This perception of climate change as a distant threat is problematic because it implies little personal relevance. Low levels of personal relevance in turn are problematic because individuals' perception of being personally at risk can be an important motivation to take action against the source of that risk 9-14 .Consistent with this analysis, it has repeatedly been suggested that highlighting the proximal consequences of climate change could be an important part of strategies to engage and mobilize publics around this issue 3,[15][16][17][18][19][20] . Although the assumed psychological mechanism of proximising is often not verbalised (see also ref. 21 , where the term is used to describe a discursive strategy in which the speaker presents physically and temporally distant events as close and directly relevant to the addressee), the rationale behind proximising climate change seems to be that this approach (a) decreases the psychological distance between the issue and individuals who could or should act 17,22 and, (b) makes the consequences of climate change easier to visualise 4,23 and more personally relevant 24,25 . Moreover, proximising climate change is believed to increase (emotional) concern 16,22,26,27 and the feeling o...

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Measuring defensive responses to threatening messages: a meta-analysis of measures

Cited by 78 publications

References 64 publications

‘Drinking is our modern way of bonding’: Young people’s beliefs about interventions to encourage moderate drinking

‘Drinking is our modern way of bonding’: Young people’s beliefs about interventions to encourage moderate drinking

The moderating impact of self‐esteem on self‐affirmation effects

Psychological responses to the proximity of climate change

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