No significant association of repeated messages with changes in health compliance in the COVID-19 pandemic: a registered report on the extended parallel process model

Abstract

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.

Media exposure, threat processing, and mitigation behaviors in Gulf Coast residents facing the co‐occurring threats of COVID‐19 and hurricanes

“…In contrast to prior work exploring climate change mitigation using a representative sample of Taiwanese residents (Sarrina Li & Huang, 2020), we found that for both COVID‐19 and hurricanes, perceived efficacy and perceived threat exhibited independent—rather than solely interactive—effects on mitigation behaviors. While prior research on college students found support for a perceived threat and social distancing behavior during COVID‐19 (Roberto et al., 2021 ), research using an online sample of adults found that only severity was associated with behaviors (Magnan et al., 2021 ), and experimental work ( N = 326) found perceived efficacy—but not perceived threat—was associated with behavioral intentions (Yang et al., 2021 ). Relatedly, a sample of 2500 coastal North Carolina home owners found only limited support for the association between risk perceptions and intention to engage in hurricane mitigation (Slotter et al., 2020 ).…”

“…Indeed, prior research suggests that people reporting higher levels of perceived risk, perceived severity, and self‐efficacy tend to adopt more protective behaviors in response to infectious disease threats (Chong et al., 2020; Cui et al., 2017; S. C. Kim & Hawkins, 2020; Lee & You, 2020; Lim et al., 2020), including COVID‐19 (Guidry et al., 2021), and are more likely to evacuate during a hurricane (Burnside et al., 2007; Stein et al., 2010). However, as detailed below, other research conducted during the early phase of the COVID‐19 pandemic found mixed support for EPPM threat processing constructs as guides for protective behavior (Sarrina Li & Huang, 2020; Yang et al., 2021), suggesting the need for continued inquiry.…”

Testing Extended Parallel Processing Model in the Korean COVID-19 Context: Effect of Moral Intuitions as Moderators

“…Although the results of our study showed non-significant results with EPPM hypotheses, this does not mean EPPM is not appropriate to be applied in the Korean COVID-19 pandemic context. This is due to two reasons: first, previous studies still suggested that EPPM can be applied in the East Asian COVID-19 context ( 3 , 4 , 9 ). Second, non-significant results of our study (e.g., H1, H3, H5, and H6) can be still explained in the EPPM context.…”

“…Previous studies have applied EPPM in the COVID-19 context across different countries, such as East Asia (3,4,9), North America (10)(11)(12), and the Middle East (2,13,14). These studies proposed various unique variables that relate to applying EPPM to the COVID-19 context, such as age, gender, education, economic status, work experience, risk information exposure, intention to follow government recommendations, willingness to work, and self-esteem.…”

Social distancing between personal belongings during the COVID-19 pandemic

“…The COVID-19 pandemic has persisted for more than three years. Governments and experts have provided instructions and suggestions to maintain a certain social (physical) distance between people to prevent droplet and aerosol infection of the virus (Yonemitsu et al, 2020;Yang et al, 2021), and this is now becoming the norm (Yamada et al, 2021). Along with the research development, we know that aerosol is one of the transmission routes (Anderson et al, 2020).…”