Temporal context effects and energy drink consumption: the moderating role of behavioral status

Abstract

Objective

This study investigated the factors that impact the effectiveness of energy drink-related health messages. Specifically, this study examined how behavioral status moderates the effects of the temporal contexts described in messages related to energy drink consumption.

Participants

A total of 823 college students enrolled in a northeastern university participated in this study.

Methods

A 2 (temporal context: proximate vs. distant) × 3 (behavioral status: non-initiator vs. former consumer vs. current consumer) experiment was conducted.

Results

Proximate context messages were more effective for non-initiators and current consumers in influencing descriptive norms and attitudes respectively, whereas distant context messages were marginally more effective for former consumers in influencing descriptive norms.

Conclusion

The findings contribute to health promotion research by advancing scholarly understanding of the various behavioral status-dependent psychological effects of temporal context. Moreover, the results have implications for designing effective health campaign messages targeted to college students.

Keywords:

• attitudes
• behavioral status
• descriptive norms
• perceived behavioral control
• subjective norms
• temporal context

Conflict of interest disclosure

The author has no conflicts of interest to report. The author confirms that the research presented in this article met the ethical guidelines, including adherence to the legal requirements, of the United States of America and received approval from the Institutional Review Board of University of Maryland, College Park.

Funding

This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korea government (MSIT) (No.2021R1G1A1012083); and the Yonsei University Research Fund of 2020 (#2020-22-0516).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jarim Kim

Jarim Kim (Ph.D., University of Maryland, 2014) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at Yonsei University, Seoul, South Korea. Her research interests include persuasion, message strategies, and health/risk communication.