The Effects of Message Framing and Visual Image on Persuasion

Abstract

This study examined the joint effects of message framing (gain vs. loss) and visual image (image vs. no image) on persuasion as it related to the use of dental floss and the use of sunscreen (N = 252). For both topics, the results revealed a Frame × Image interaction effect on fear. The interaction was such that the presence (vs. absence) of an image produced more fear in the loss-framed conditions. The corresponding results for gain-framed messages were inconsistent. Covariance analyses showed that fear mediated the effect of the interaction on persuasion, whereas dominant cognitive response did not.

[Supplementary materials are available for this article. Go to the publisher's online edition of Communication Quarterly for the following free supplemental resources: sunscreen and flossing messages of gain-visual and loss-visual.]

Keywords:

• Cognition
• Emotion
• Flossing
• Framing
• Gain–Loss
• Image
• Persuasion
• Sunscreen

Notes

^a Lower diagonal = flossing message.

^b Upper diagonal = sunscreen message.

*p < .05. **p < .001.

We based our judgment of the coefficients on known features of reliability statistics as well as past experience with this coding scheme. On the first point, it has been established that unevenly distributed data will produce poor reliability values. This may reflect a problem with the coding scheme or a lopsided distribution that is the product of sampling error or genuinely uneven distribution in the population. Feinstein and Cicchetti (1990) provided an illustration of the problem of uneven marginals for kappa. On the second point—past experience—the coding scheme has been used successfully in several previous studies (e.g., Dillard & Peck, 2000; Shen & Dillard, 2007). The procedures produced satisfactory reliability estimates and yielded meaningful substantive findings. In all of those studies, however, the data were unevenly distributed. This also proved true in these data and to a larger degree than in previous work.

Of course, the distinction is a relative one. Depending on their purposes, other researchers might choose to locate the boundary between proximal and distal at some other point on the continuum.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kiwon Seo

Kiwon Seo (M.A., Korea University, 2005; M.A., Pennsylvania State University, 2008) is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Communication Arts and Sciences at Pennsylvania State University.

James Price Dillard

James Price Dillard (Ph.D., Michigan State University, 1983) is a liberal arts research professor in the Department of Communication Arts and Sciences at Pennsylvania State University.

Fuyuan Shen

Fuyuan Shen (Ph.D., University of North Carolina, 1997) is an associate professor in the College of Communications at Pennsylvania State University.