Using EPPM to Evaluate the Effectiveness of Fear Appeal Messages Across Different Media Outlets to Increase the Intention of Breast Self-Examination Among Chinese Women

Abstract

The current study aims to examine the influence of fear appeal messages across different media outlets on Chinese women's intention of breast self-examination using the Extended Parallel Processing Model (EPPM). A two-by-two-by-two factorial experiment is designed to examine the effect of threat and efficacy level of stimulus on different media outlets on behavioral intention. The sample includes 488 Chinese women who are between 25 and 50 years old. The results revealed that there were significant main effects of both threat and efficacy on the intention to performing breast self-examination. Moreover, the significant two-way interaction effect between threat and efficacy was detected, which indicated that Chinese women who received messages containing both high threat and high efficacy had the highest intention of breast self-examination. Besides, the results demonstrated that there was no significant difference in the effectiveness of fear appeal messages on between traditional and social media.

Personal and Media Factors Related to Citizens’ Pro-environmental Behavioral Intention against Haze in China: A Moderating Analysis of TPB

“…These findings suggest that when people pay a lot of attention to both efficacy and threat messages, their intention to engage in haze mitigation would be very high, irrespective of the levels of their perceived behavioral control. This is consistent with prior studies on behavioral change, which demonstrated the significant effects of messages containing both high efficacy and high threat [11,59].…”

“…However, we found that attention to haze-related threat messages was not related to haze mitigation. This finding comports with prior studies that threat messages may not elicit behavioral change [11,56]. Theoretical literature on message design points out when fear appeals trigger a high In Figure 4a, among people with less perceived behavioral control to perform pro-environmental behavior, increasing attention to threat messages about haze effects would magnify behavioral intention gaps among people who paid different amounts of attention to efficacy messages.…”

“…However, we found that attention to haze-related threat messages was not related to haze mitigation. This finding comports with prior studies that threat messages may not elicit behavioral change [11,56]. Theoretical literature on message design points out when fear appeals trigger a high perceived threat alongside a low perceived efficacy, individuals would subsequently engage in defensive avoidance [13].…”

“…Accordingly, various combinations of efficacy and threat messages are created to identify the most effective one. In particular, the EPPM literature indicates that people who are exposed to messages with both high efficacy and high threat content have the highest behavioral intention [11,14]. However, whether such an effect varies among different groups of people remains largely unknown.…”

“…As people are motivated to seek information to eliminate uncertainty about risks, the information embedded in media messages becomes a major focus of their attention. Besides, many empirical studies have documented that exposure to messages with different content could lead to different effects on behavior [11,12]. Therefore, this study proposes to examine communication variables in extended TPB by operationalizing media attention in terms of attention to different media content.…”