What is it?
A fear appeal- is a persuasive message which emphasis the harmful physical/social consequences of failing to comply with the recommendations of the message, it is a message designed to elicit fear in an attempt to persuade an individual to pursue some predefined course of action.
Some health promotion messages use fear appeals as a means of stimulation behavioural change. The idea that fear aroused in the target population will motivate them to change their behaviour and their attitudes.
Fear appeals: have the intent to alter intentions and motivate individuals to act on a message. Much of the research has been directed at establishing the relevant variables in both the target of the message, as well as the message itself.
Components
Researchers have examined several variables that have been thought, at one time or another, to influence the persuasive effect of fear appeals. These are the perceived threat, the strength of fear elicited, perceived efficacy, individual characteristics and defence mechanisms.
Perceived threat: Is thought to be an important moderator in the process of fear evoked persuasion. it consists of the
perceived severity of the threat and the
perceived susceptibility to it.
LINK TO THE HBM
Perceived susceptibility: Sometimes referred to as perceived vulnerability, is thought to be key in motivating an individual to act in response to a fear appeal. It is the perception of the probability and extent to which they might experience the threat.
Perceived severity, however, is the degree to which the person believes that they will be harmed if the threat is experienced. These threat components form a perceptual trigger for the fear reaction, Perceived severity, the extent to which the individual believes they will be adversely affected by the threat has significant effect on persuasion. Though, in some cases, persuasion has been found just the opposite. Research has found that the effect of fear on intentions is mediated by the perceived severity. That is, fear does not act directly on intentions, but increases the level of perceived severity, which ion turn raises the intentions to act on the message.
Fear strength:
The strength of the fear elicited by the message is also an important determinant of the subjects intentions to change the target behaviour. Fear strength is distinct from threat severity in that, as mentioned before, fear strength is related to the emotion of fear, whereas threat severity is considered to be an entirely cognitive process. Some early research found that higher levels of dear produce defensive reactions, compelling the researchers to caution that low or moderate levels were most effective. They argue that although persuasion increases when fear rises from low to moderate levels, when rising from moderate to high levels, it actually decreases.
Individual Characteristics
A lot of interest in fear appeals literature has been the contribution of the individual characteristics. The goal has been to understand which Individual differences in personality or psychological traits contribute or detract from the effectiveness of the fear appeal. Individual moderation variables studied this far include age ethnicity, gender, coping style, locus of control, self-esteem and perceived vulnerability.
Perceived efficacy
Quite possibly the most integral element of an effectively persuasive fear appeal, and mre predictive of action than fear arousal, is perceived efficacy, this has two components; perceived self-efficacy and perceived response efficacy. perceived self-efficacy is the extent to which the person believes they are able to avert the threat presented in the fear appeal message. Though there has been some concern that repeated exposure may result in a 'fatalism' effect, in which individuals develop a form of learned helplessness in regard to the threat, the majority of research shows that self efficacy is essential for persuasion in fear appeals. Perceived response efficacy, the belief that the action recommended will avert the threat, is another important fear appeal element. If the individual does not believes that he or she is capable of averting the threat, it is likely that denial or some other defensive response will be produced in order to lower fear. Some research has found that perceived efficacy is more predictive of intention to change behaviour than either element of perceived threat.
Defence mechanisms
The previous components are thought to determine what response an individual has to the message. One of these potential reactions to the fear appeal that is of the most negative consequence is that of the defensive fear control reaction. In response to the fear appeal, an individual May form the intent to change their behaviour. However, when either self or response efficacy is low, the individual, perceiving that they are unable to avert the threat, may rely on defensive avoidance to lower their fear.
However, research suggests that this underlying assumption does not always hold true. Some researchers have questioned the effectiveness of evoking fear when trying to persuade people to change
There are several interesting debates around the concept of fear arousal:
Whether a high fear level is more effective than a middle of lower level of fear and various studies province contradictory evidence.
The extent to which it is ethical to scare people. While around sing fear may well be considered to be unethical to many, there is a the counter-view it is worthwhile if people stop drinking driving or give up smoking-the ends justify the means.
