,
,Week 1 – Affective Appeals
o Witte, K., & Allen, M. (2000). A meta-analysis of fear appeals: Implications for
effective public health campaigns. Health Education & Behaviour, 27(5), 591-615
[ONLY READ PAGES 591-595]
Key Points:
• Overview of Fear Appeals: The study synthesizes over 100 articles on fear appeals
using meta-analytical methods to assess how effective fear appeals are in changing
health behaviours.
• Fear appeals are persuasive messages that evoke fear to motivate behaviour
change, like quitting smoking or using sunscreen.
The effect of fear appeals:
• Affective appeals use a functional approach using emotion and persuasion.
• Fear appeal is a message that has the goal to arouse fear to motivate attitude and
behaviour change.
Effectiveness of Fear Appeals:
• Strong fear appeals, which effectively raise awareness about the severity and
susceptibility to health threats, tend to be more persuasive than weak ones.
• Fear appeals can lead to both desired outcomes (like adopting healthier behaviours)
and undesired outcomes (like ignoring the message or reacting against it).
Key Variables:
▪ Message: The process begins with
a message that contains a fear appeal.
This message is designed to alert the
audience to a specific threat or
danger, emphasizing the severity and
personal susceptibility to the issue at
hand.
▪ Fear Appeal: The fear appeal is a
critical component of the message
intended to evoke an emotional
, response by highlighting potential dangers and the severe consequences of not
taking preventive actions.
▪ Cognition: This step involves the cognitive processing of the fear appeal. The
audience assesses the information presented in the message, focusing on the
perceived susceptibility (how likely they think they are to be affected by the threat)
and the perceived severity (how serious they believe the threat is).
▪ Fear Emotion: As a result of cognitive processing, the individual experiences fear.
This emotional response is crucial as it motivates the individual to take some form
of action to mitigate the perceived threat.
▪ Conation (Behaviour Change): Finally, the fear generated and the cognitive
appraisal lead to conation, which refers to the motivational aspect of behaviour
change. If the fear and perceived efficacy (belief in the effectiveness of the
recommended action) are sufficient, the individual is likely to engage in the
recommended protective behaviors to reduce or eliminate the threat.
o Fear Appeal: Intense emotional response to alert about danger.
o Perceived Threat: Includes perceived susceptibility (likelihood of being affected)
and perceived severity (seriousness of the impact).
o Perceived Efficacy: Involves beliefs about the effectiveness of the suggested action
to mitigate the threat and one's ability to perform the action.
Findings from Meta-Analysis:
• Stronger fear appeals are linked to higher perceived threat and efficacy.
Example: A campaign showing the severe effects of texting while driving (crashed cars,
injured people) and statistics like "Texting while driving increases your crash risk by 23
times" intensifies the perception of threat. Coupled with clear information on how using a
hands-free device reduces this risk, it enhances both threat and efficacy perceptions.
• The most effective messages combine high threat with high efficacy, leading to the
greatest behaviour change.
Example: An anti-smoking campaign that portrays the severe health consequences of
smoking (threat) and offers a reliable support system for quitting, like free nicotine patches
and counselling (efficacy), effectively encourages smokers to quit.
• High threat messages paired with low efficacy can result in defensive reactions or
message rejection.
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