How Can E-Cigarette Fear Appeals Improve the Perceived Threat, Fear, Anger, and Protection Motivation of Young People.
Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Sun C
PROVIDER: S-EPMC8435607 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Similar Datasets
Project description:AimsA warning on e-cigarette packaging is one way the U.S. government can inform the public of known harms of e-cigarette use. Currently, the only required warning on these products is: "WARNING: This product contains nicotine. Nicotine is an addictive chemical." This exploratory study aims to inform potential future investigations and FDA decisions regarding alternative warnings that may generate fear in addition to being intentionally informational.MethodData were obtained from responses by 16 online focus groups with adult (N = 47, age range = 18-64) and youth (N = 32, age range 14-16) participants with various smoking and vaping experiences. We showed each focus group a set of hypothetical e-cigarette warning labels to determine how they respond to currently existing public statements that communicate information on the toxicity of ingredients in e-cigarettes, potential health risks, addiction to nicotine, and the uncertainty of the science regarding health effects of using these products. The focus group interviews were audio recorded and transcribed. Transcripts were subjected to a multiphase coding process to identify common response themes. Codes derived from the Extended Parallel Processing Model were then applied to understand impact of potentially fear-inducing language by warning category and age group.ResultsFor adults, all warnings-except those about addiction-gave rise to spontaneous danger control (intended) responses, such as quit intentions. Warnings highlighting cognitive and uncertain effects may be particularly promising for adult consumers of tobacco products because both gengerated danger control and response efficacy without evidence of fear control. However, responses also suggest that warnings risk discouraging some adults who use combustible cigarettes from transitioning to e-cigarettes for harm reduction. For youth, while evidence of response efficacy and danger control emerged among youth exposed to messages in all warning categories but one-addiction-unproductive reactions indicative of fear control were also prevalent among youth respondent across most warning types. On average, youth were more skeptical than adults about the harms of using e-cigarettes.Policy implicationsImplications of study findings for the development of future effective e-cigarette warning messages are explored.
| S-EPMC10289367 | biostudies-literature
Project description:COVID-19 vaccinations have demonstrated effectiveness in reducing severe infections. However, vaccine hesitancy posed a major public health hurdle to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. Online spread of vaccine conspiracy beliefs generated unwarranted mistrust and resistance to vaccines. While numerous studies have explored the factors influencing vaccine hesitancy, there remains a lack of comprehensive understanding regarding the interplay between perceived disease vulnerability, COVID-19 fear, and vaccine hesitancy. Protection motivation theory posits citizens will evaluate perceived threats and take actions to mitigate potential harm. With a large U.S. sample, path analysis demonstrated individuals' perceived disease vulnerability was associated with lower vaccine hesitancy. Greater perceived disease vulnerability was associated with higher COVID-19 fear. Greater COVID-19 fear was associated with lower vaccine hesitancy. Greater vaccine conspiracy beliefs associated with higher vaccine hesitancy. However, in the presence of perceived vulnerability to disease, vaccine conspiracy beliefs associated with higher fear of COVID-19 and thereby lower vaccine hesitancy. We found under circumstances of higher perceived vulnerability to disease and fear of COVID-19, vaccine conspiratorial believers were less vaccine hesitant. We discuss how public health messaging can highlight personal risks to contracting COVID-19 to appeal to those who self-identify as disease prone, but may have reservations about vaccines because of misinformation. Successfully combating diseases entails reaching and gaining cooperation from misbelievers because misinformation is expected to continue in the digital age. By understand individual differences to vaccine hesitancy, it can help increase vaccinations and prevent severe illnesses in the post COVID-19 pandemic era.
| S-EPMC10881856 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BackgroundSerious games for the training of prevention behaviors have been widely recognized as potentially valuable tools for adolescents and young adults across a variety of risk behaviors. However, the role of agency as a distinguishing factor from traditional health interventions has seldom been isolated and grounded in the persuasive health communication theory. Fear appeals have different effects on intentions to perform prevention behaviors depending on the immediacy of the consequences. Looking into how to increase self-efficacy beliefs for health behavior with distant consequences is the first step toward improving game-based interventions for adverse health outcomes.ObjectiveThis study aimed to investigate the effect of agency on self-efficacy and the intention to drink less alcohol in an interactive digital narrative fear appeal. Furthermore, the communicated immediacy of threat outcomes was evaluated as a potential moderator of the effect of agency on self-efficacy.MethodsA web-based experimental study was conducted with university students (N=178). The participants were presented with a fear appeal outlining the consequences of excessive alcohol use in a fully automated web-based interactive narrative. Participants either had perceived control over the outcome of the narrative scenario (high agency) or no control over the outcome (low agency). The threat was either framed as a short-term (high immediacy) or long-term (low immediacy) negative health outcome resulting from the execution of the risk behavior (drinking too much alcohol).ResultsA total of 123 valid cases were analyzed. Self-efficacy and intention to limit alcohol intake were not influenced by the agency manipulation. Self-efficacy was shown to be a significant predictor of behavioral intention. The immediacy of the threat did not moderate the relationship between agency and self-efficacy.ConclusionsAlthough agency manipulation was successful, we could not find evidence of an effect of agency or threat immediacy on self-efficacy. The implications for different operationalizations of different agency concepts, as well as the malleability of self-efficacy beliefs for long-term threats, are discussed. The use of repeated versus single interventions and different threat types (eg, health and social threats) should be tested empirically to establish a way forward for diversifying intervention approaches.Trial registrationClinicalTrials.gov NCT05321238; https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT05321238.
| S-EPMC9237780 | biostudies-literature
Project description:In the UK, knife crime continues to be a persistent and worrying concern. Media campaigns are often used by police and anti-knife crime organisations in an attempt to discourage young people from picking up a weapon. Many focus on the potentially devastating consequences associated with carrying a weapon, with the aim of provoking fear and thus a deterrent effect. In this paper, we present the findings from two experimental studies exploring the effects of exposure to fear-based knife crime media campaigns on young people's intentions to engage in knife-carrying behaviour. Utilising a terror management theory perspective, in both studies we found that exposure to knife-related campaign imagery increased mortality salience, but there was no effect of campaign condition on willingness to carry a knife or on perceived benefits of knife-carrying. Although knife-related self-esteem/cultural worldviews predicted attitudes towards knife-carrying, such views did not moderate the effect of exposure to knife-related campaign imagery, and there was no effect of priming participants' to consider the value of behaving responsibly. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.
| S-EPMC9679559 | biostudies-literature
Project description:It is generally thought to be adaptive that fear relevant stimuli in the environment can capture and hold our attention; and in psychopathology attentional allocation is thought to be cue-specific. Such hypervigilance toward threatening cues or difficulty to disengage attention from threat has been demonstrated for a variety of stimuli, for example, toward evolutionary prepared animals or toward socially relevant facial expressions. Usually, specific stimuli have been examined in individuals with particular fears (e.g., animals in animal fearful and faces in socially fearful participants). However, different kinds of stimuli are rarely examined in one study. Thus, it is unknown how different categories of threatening stimuli compete for attention and how specific kinds of fears modulate these attentional processes. In this study, we used a free viewing paradigm: pairs of pictures with threat-related content (spiders or angry faces) or neutral content (butterflies or neutral faces) were presented side by side (i.e., spiders and angry faces, angry and neutral faces, spiders and butterflies, butterflies and neutral faces). Eye-movements were recorded while spider fearful, socially anxious, or non-anxious participants viewed the picture pairs. Results generally replicate the finding that unpleasant pictures more effectively capture attention in the beginning of a trial compared to neutral pictures. This effect was more pronounced in spider fearful participants: the higher the fear the quicker they were in looking at spiders. This was not the case for high socially anxious participants and pictures of angry faces. Interestingly, when presented next to each other, there was no preference in initial orientation for either spiders or angry faces. However, neutral faces were looked at more quickly than butterflies. Regarding sustained attention, we found no general preference for unpleasant pictures compared to neutral pictures.
| S-EPMC6064822 | biostudies-other
Project description:With more than 100 million cases and over 2 million deaths globally, the COVID-19 pandemic continues to remain a major threat. Identifying the behavioral factors influencing preventive behaviors for COVID-19 are crucial in devising public health policies to promote essential strategies to combat the pandemic in an efficient manner. The current study was therefore conducted to estimate the prevalence of COVID-19 preventive behaviors and measure their association with behavioral constructs like threat perception, response efficacy, and self-efficacy, as per socio-demographic background. A region-stratified online survey focusing on the constructs of protection motivation theory, for example, threat and coping appraisal for preventive health practices against COVID-19, was carried out among adult users of social media in India. Generalized linear models with cluster-adjusted-robust standard errors were used to analyze the responses and model the preventive practices among the study population. Analysis of a total 2,646 responses revealed that proper perceptions regarding cause, symptoms, and transmission of COVID-19 were prevalent in the majority of the respondents. The majority of the participants reported frequent use of face masks (93.20%), followed by frequent washing of hands with soap and water (84.90%). The majority of the respondents affirmed that, though not frequently but sometimes, they avoid touching the face with unclean hands. Frequently covering mouth with the crook of the elbow while sneezing and coughing, and maintaining physical distance when outside was noted among 74.14 and 83.84%, respectively. The proportion of participants frequently using sanitizers to clean hands and those infrequently practicing the same were comparable. Self-efficacy for preventive practices and threat-appraisal of COVID-19 illness were identified as important determinants of the selected COVID-19 preventive behaviors, independently. The analysis confirmed that practices of the behaviors were mostly synergistic to each other. Current findings highlight that formulation of precise risk communication strategies to improve perceptions regarding threat appraisal and self-efficacy could facilitate desirable practices, which are also effective in the prevention of airborne infections and, hence, may contribute toward broader policy directions. The evidence urges the implementation of precision-driven risk communication and diffusion of these practices to attain behavioral herd immunity.
| S-EPMC8287502 | biostudies-literature
Project description:The presence and intensity of red coloration correlate with male dominance and testosterone in a variety of animal species, and even artificial red stimuli can influence dominance interactions. In humans, red stimuli are perceived as more threatening and dominant than other colours, and wearing red increases the probability of winning sporting contests. We investigated whether red clothing biases the perception of aggression and dominance outside of competitive settings, and whether red influences decoding of emotional expressions. Participants rated digitally manipulated images of men for aggression and dominance and categorized the emotional state of these stimuli. Men were rated as more aggressive and more dominant when presented in red than when presented in either blue or grey. The effect on perceived aggression was found for male and female raters, but only male raters were sensitive to red as a signal of dominance. In a categorization test, images were significantly more often categorized as 'angry' when presented in the red condition, demonstrating that colour stimuli affect perceptions of emotions. This suggests that the colour red may be a cue used to predict propensity for dominance and aggression in human males.
| S-EPMC4455742 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BackgroundThe purpose of the present study was to examine the effectiveness of the injury awareness and prevention programme P.A.R.T.Y. (Prevent Alcohol and Risk-Related Trauma in Youth) in Germany. On a designated P.A R.T.Y. day, school classes spend a day in a trauma hospital experiencing the various wards through which a seriously injured person goes. A further goal of the study was to reveal indications of the programme's mechanism of action by testing theory-based impact models of fear appeals and cognitive beliefs.MethodsIn a quasi-experimental longitudinal study with three measurement times the participants of 19 P.A.R.T.Y. days (n = 330), as well as pupils who did not attend the programme (n = 244), were interviewed with a standardised questionnaire. They reported risk behaviour, feelings of threat and cognitive beliefs about road traffic. The data were analysed using a meta-analytical approach to estimate an average effect size across the different P.A.R.T.Y. days. Path models were used to identify possible mechanisms of action.ResultsFor most of the parameters, small positive effects could be proven immediately after the P.A.R.T.Y.InterventionHowever, after four to 5 months only one statistically significant effect was found. Using path analytical models, important predictors for behavioural changes (e.g. self-efficacy) could be identified. But for these predictors no or only short-term effects were observed in the meta-analysis.ConclusionsFear appeals as used primarily in the P.A.R.T.Y. programme appear to cause behavioural changes only to a limited extent and only in the short-term, especially if the strengthening of psychosocial resources is not given sufficient consideration. The participants must also cognitively process the experiences in the hospital. Accordingly, consideration should be given to how the P.A.R.T.Y. program could be adapted to complement the fear appeal with cognitive components.
| S-EPMC8962068 | biostudies-literature
Project description:The primary purpose of the present study was to examine the effectiveness of threat appeals in influencing impulsive decision making associated with texting while driving. The participants in the treatment group were exposed to a threatening message about the danger of texting while driving, whereas those in the control group were exposed to a non-threatening message. Following the exposure to either message, the participants completed a delay-discounting task that assessed the degree of impulsive decision making in a hypothetical texting-while-driving scenario. A comparison between the groups revealed that the threat appeals reduced the degree of impulsive decision making associated with texting while driving. In addition, the threat appeals led to greater anticipated regret from texting while driving, less favorable attitudes toward texting while driving, and decreased intentions to text while driving in the future in the treatment group. These results suggest that video-based threat appeals are promising intervention strategies for the public health challenge of texting while driving. Implications from the behavioral economic perspective are discussed.
| S-EPMC6405105 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Postencounter and circa-strike defensive contexts represent two adaptive responses to potential and imminent danger. In the context of a predator, the postencounter reflects the initial detection of the potential threat, whereas the circa-strike is associated with direct predatory attack. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate the neural organization of anticipation and avoidance of artificial predators with high or low probability of capturing the subject across analogous postencounter and circa-strike contexts of threat. Consistent with defense systems models, postencounter threat elicited activity in forebrain areas, including subgenual anterior cingulate cortex (sgACC), hippocampus, and amygdala. Conversely, active avoidance during circa-strike threat increased activity in mid-dorsal ACC and midbrain areas. During the circa-strike condition, subjects showed increased coupling between the midbrain and mid-dorsal ACC and decreased coupling with the sgACC, amygdala, and hippocampus. Greater activity was observed in the right pregenual ACC for high compared with low probability of capture during circa-strike threat. This region showed decreased coupling with the amygdala, insula, and ventromedial prefrontal cortex. Finally, we found that locomotor errors correlated with subjective reports of panic for the high compared with low probability of capture during the circa-strike threat, and these panic-related locomotor errors were correlated with midbrain activity. These findings support models suggesting that higher forebrain areas are involved in early-threat responses, including the assignment and control of fear, whereas imminent danger results in fast, likely "hard-wired," defensive reactions mediated by the midbrain.
| S-EPMC2782300 | biostudies-other