Reducing psychological reactance to bystander intervention messages: comparing preemptive and postscript mitigation strategies

ABSTRACT

This study compared the effectiveness of two approaches for diminishing psychological reactance in the context of bystander intervention: preemptive and postscript mitigation. Undergraduates (N = 598) completed an online survey experiment. Participants viewed a message promoting bystander intervention and were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: preemptive script, restoration postscript, or a message-only control (no pre/postscript). Consistent with past work, no differences were observed in the effectiveness of the preemptive and postscript mitigation techniques vis-à-vis reactance and behavioral intention. The use of a reactance mitigation strategy (preemptive or postscript) resulted in greater behavioral intention relative to a control message. However, post hoc analyses revealed this effect occurred among women, but not men. Counter to expectations, the use of preemptive and postscript strategies did not reduce reactance relative to a control message.

KEYWORDS:

• Bystander intervention
• sexual assault
• reactance

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data and materials described in this article are openly available on the Open Science Framework at http://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/VFRMB

Open Scholarship

This article has earned the Center for Open Science badge for Open Materials. The materials are openly accessible at https://osf.io/532xk/?view_only=b7bc79e2d25e448a9eeab435bdbfb14e.

Notes

1. Five participants identified as non-binary and four identified as transgender. Participants could choose more than one gender identity.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Tobias Reynolds-Tylus

Tobias Reynolds-Tylus (PhD, University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign, 2018) is an assistant professor in the School of Communication Studies at James Madison University. His research interests include health communication, persuasion, and health campaigns. He often applies psychological reactance theory to understand resistance to health campaigns.

Kathleen E. Smith

Kathleen E. Smith graduated with her MA in communication and advocacy from James Madison University in 2022. She received her bachelor’s degree in communication studies from James Madison University in 2018. Her research interests include interpersonal relationships and family communication. She recently conducted research on mother-daughter relationships and chronic illness.

Megan E. Moore

Megan E. Moore is a second-year communication and advocacy student at James Madison University studying health communication. She received her bachelor's degree in interpersonal communication from James Madison University in 2021. Her research interests include critical gender and sexuality studies. She is currently conducting research on embodied queer femininity and femme sexuality.