@Article{info:doi/10.2196/41959,
author="Scharnetzki, Elizabeth
and Waterston, Leo
and Scherer, Aaron M
and Thorpe, Alistair
and Fagerlin, Angela
and Han, Paul K J",
title="Effects of Prosocial and Hope-Promoting Communication Strategies on COVID-19 Worry and Intentions for Risk-Reducing Behaviors and Vaccination: Experimental Study",
journal="JMIR Form Res",
year="2023",
month="Aug",
day="1",
volume="7",
pages="e41959",
keywords="COVID-19; communication; hope; prosocial; vaccination; risk; behavior; vaccine; effect; effectiveness; social; messages; public; web-based; survey",
abstract="Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has engendered widespread fear and skepticism about recommended risk-reducing behaviors including vaccination. Health agencies are faced with the need to communicate to the public in ways that both provide reassurance and promote risk-reducing behaviors. Communication strategies that promote prosocial (PS) values and hope are being widely used; however, the existing research on the persuasiveness of these strategies has offered mixed evidence. There is also very little research examining the comparative effectiveness of PS and hope-promoting (HP) strategies. Objective: The aim of this study is to evaluate the comparative effectiveness of PS and HP messages in reassuring the public and motivating COVID-19 risk--reducing behaviors. Methods: A web-based factorial experiment was conducted in which a diverse sample of the US public was randomized to read messages which adapted existing COVID-19 information from a public website produced by a state government public health department to include alternative framing language: PS, HP, or no additional framing (control). Participants then completed surveys measuring COVID-19 worry and intentions for COVID-19 risk--reducing behaviors and vaccination. Results: COVID-19 worry was unexpectedly higher in the HP than in the control and PS conditions. Intentions for COVID-19 risk--reducing behaviors did not differ between groups; however, intentions for COVID-19 vaccination were higher in the HP than in the control condition, and this effect was mediated by COVID-19 worry. Conclusions: It appears that HP communication strategies may be more effective than PS strategies in motivating risk-reducing behaviors in some contexts but with the paradoxical cost of promoting worry. ",
issn="2561-326X",
doi="10.2196/41959",
url="https://formative.jmir.org/2023/1/e41959",
url="https://doi.org/10.2196/41959",
url="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37379364"
}