The Effects of Framing and Fear on Ratings and Impact of Antimarijuana PSAs

Abstract

A laboratory experiment, funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health, involved 243 U.S. undergraduate students and employed a 2 (gain-framed vs. loss-framed) × 2 (high vs. low threat) plus control group pretest-posttest experimental design to assess the combined effects of frame (gain vs. loss) and level of threat of public service announcements (PSAs) about marijuana on attitudes, beliefs, and intentions related to marijuana, as well as the relationship of message condition to ratings of PSAs. Results suggest that loss-framed messages may lead to greater perceived threat, as well as reactance, and gain-framed messages may lead to a greater reduction in positive attitudes toward marijuana than loss-framed messages. Finally, frame and threat may interact in a complex way. Further research is suggested to replicate these findings. A substantial body of carefully crafted and systematic research studies examining both content and features of messages increasingly informs mass media prevention efforts, including the development of public service announcements (PSAs). Although the significance of messages on commercial broadcast stations may be diminishing with the increasing role and impact of new media, many of the basic questions addressed by this research are likely to apply across media channels. Nonetheless, important questions about what makes a message effective in changing an individual's attitudes or behavior remain to be answered. In this paper, the authors focus on two theoretically derived strategies that offer possibilities for developing persuasive messages: framing and threat.

Keywords :

• marijuana
• fear
• framing
• public service announcement
• mass media
• experiment

THE AUTHORS

Rick S. Zimmerman, Ph.D., is Professor and Associate Dean for Research in the College of Nursing at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. He has spent most of his career conducting HIV, STD, and teen-pregnancy prevention and substance-abuse prevention and intervention research. He also continues to develop his Multiple Domain Model of health behavior to incorporate more social structural and environmental variables into behavior change models primarily to explain unhealthy and risky behaviors of adolescents and young adults.

Pamela K. Cupp, Ph.D., is a Research Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Kentucky and a Research Scientist at the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation. She has been significantly involved in the development of HIV, STD, and pregnancy-prevention programs for numerous funded projects, both in the U.S. and abroad (South Africa, Ethiopia, Liberia, and Thailand). Her work has included developing and/or modifying both classroom and community-based interventions for adolescents and collaborating on two HIV prevention media studies.

Melissa Abadi, Ph.D., is an Associate Research Scientist at the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation's Louisville Center with a doctoral degree in Communication from the University of Kentucky. She has a diverse background in health behavior promotion, applied behavior change theory, and quantitative and qualitative research methods. She currently works on several studies focused on substance use prevention and treatment for youth and young adults, both nationally and internationally.

Lewis Donohew, is author of the Activation Theory of Information Exposure and a specialist in communication and prevention whose work has been recognized with a number of national awards. He has been principal investigator on 11 research projects, 8 of them funded by the National Institutes of Health, and coinvestigator or coprincipal investigator on numerous others. For almost two decades he was a member of the research team at the Center for Drug Abuse Research Translation at the University of Kentucky, where he is Emeritus Professor of Communication.

Carla Gray, MA, was a Project Coordinator at the University of Kentucky for grants from NIDA and the EPA. Her career has changed and she is now perusing a career in middle and high school social studies education.

Leonard Gordon, MS, is a Graduate Research Assistant at the University of Kentucky. He is presently pursuing a doctoral degree in Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the university's College of Public Health. He has a diverse background in epidemiology, biostatistics, quantitative research methods and big data.

Alyssa B. Grossl, Ed.S., is a doctoral candidate in the Counseling Psychology program at the University of Kentucky. Her research interests include the use of continuous client feedback and treatment effectiveness.