Chapter . Advance the Conversation: Do or Die: Using Scare Tactics to Persuade Others

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Advance the Conversation
Do or Die: Using Scare Tactics to Persuade Others

1. Your Dilemma

As a service-learning project, your life science class is planning a campus health-screening day. Medical professionals will offer blood pressure checks, diabetes screening, and vaccinations. Your professor formed student teams to organize the event, and you were assigned to the event-promotion team.

The team wants to create an event slogan that will appear in marketing materials on social media and on printed flyers. During your first team meeting, one member says, “I think we need a message that scares people. Something like, ‘Don’t be a zombie! Dying young is no joke. Attend the Health Fair.’ ” Two other group members immediately voice support for the idea.

But you see it differently. Since high school, your mother has encouraged you to have an annual physical exam. One routine test showed that you had a heart abnormality that was easily treated. This experience makes you believe the slogan should emphasize the positive benefits of health screenings rather than relying on fear tactics.

Question

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2. The Research

Communication scholars study how health professionals develop messages to maximize persuasive effect in health campaigns. One line of research looks at how the choice of positive or negative language influences receivers. Specifically, gain-framed messages use language that points out the benefits of taking care of your health (O’Keefe & Jensen, 2009). For example, a gain-framed message about health screening would be, “If you have regular health exams, you will have peace of mind.” On the other hand, messages using language that emphasizes the cost of not following good health practices are known as loss-framed messages (O’Keefe & Jensen, 2009). A loss-framed message about health screening would be, “If you don’t have regular health exams, you could die from a disease that could’ve been treated if it was caught earlier.”

Gain-framed messages can be useful for encouraging preventive action to avoid “low-risk” problems, such as flossing to prevent tooth decay (Pavey & Churchill, 2014). But loss-framed references may be necessary when health professionals want to promote the importance of early detection for curbing serious disease (Pavey & Churchill, 2014). However, the persuasive impact of either type of message frame is affected by other factors, including individual differences. Specifically, receivers will respond differently to these appeals depending on their personality, motivational concerns about health, health history, and confidence in their ability to follow health recommendations (Covey, 2014).

Question

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3. Your Opportunity

Before making a communication choice, consider the facts of the situation, and think about the research on gain-framed and loss-framed health messages. Also, reflect on what you’ve learned so far about the elaboration likelihood model, credibility, and the motivated sequence.

Question

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