Visual framing effects on emotion and mental health message effectiveness

ABSTRACT

Background: Framing used in health communication makes certain perspectives salient in order to persuade viewers of healthy behavior to improve mental health. Visuals used in these messages, however, do not always appropriately reflect the purpose of the written message and may interfere with message adherence. Because visuals communicate and elicit emotion more powerfully than text, it is important to investigate how visuals themselves are framed (i.e. what they make salient to viewers) and what effect they have on message effectiveness. Depression among college students provides context for this study, as college students suffer from depression more than other populations, and most do not seek help.

Method: An online experiment assessed participants’ (N = 488) reactions to depression messages that incorporated visuals that were framed to reflect three stages of depression: suffering, treatment, recovery. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three message conditions in which they viewed three messages and responded to questions pertaining to affective reactions, perceived behavioral attainment, and aspiration.

Results: Participants who viewed messages using recovery-related visual frames reported greater positive emotion and increased aspiration to be like the models in the visuals, while those who viewed suffering-related visual frames reported greater negative emotion and decreased aspiration to be like the models. Positive emotion mediated the relationship between recovery-related visual frames and aspiration.

Conclusions: Depression messages that use recovery-related visual frames may be more effective than suffering visual frames in motivating help-seeking behaviors among college students with depressive symptoms.

KEYWORDS:

• Visual framing
• mental health
• depression
• behavior assimilation/differentiation
• mediation analysis

Ethical approval

This study was approved by the institutional review board at University of North Carolina.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Acknowledgement

The author would like to thank Drs. Allison J. Lazard, Seth M. Noar, Russell B. Clayton, Maria (Nori) Comello, and Mimi V. Chapman for their contributions to this study.

Notes on contributor

Dr. Jennah M. Sontag recently completed her doctorate in Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a research emphasis in visual and health communication for cancer prevention. She now conducts research as a postdoctoral fellow in the Center for Tobacco Studies at Rutgers University's School of Public Health, investigating effective communication strategies pertaining to tobacco-product warnings.