Dynamic Fear in Fear Appeals: Applying Fear Appeals to Environmental Communication in China

Figures & data

Table 1. Socio-demographics characteristics of participants

Demographics	Category	N = 2573
Age	18–35	50.58%
	36–55	47.16%
	56–94	2.26%
Gender	Male	50.02%
	Female	49.98%
Education	Less than high school	.89%
	High school	3.69%
	Associate’s degree in college	12.16%
	Bachelor’s degree in college	67.39%
	Master’s degree and higher	15.86%
Monthly household income	Less than ¥8,000	4.82%
	¥8,001 to ¥12,000	8.39%
	¥12,001 to ¥15,000	9.83%
	¥15,001 to ¥20,000	21.06%
	¥20,001 to ¥35,000	29.62%
	¥35,001 or more	26.27%
Marital status	Single	16.02%
	Married	82.43%
	Widowed	.54%
	Divorced	1.01%
Residential location	City	96.27%
	Rural	3.73%
Health status	Very bad	.47%
	Bad	4.66%
	Neither good nor bad	22.81%
	Good	44.23%
	Very good	27.83%

Table 2. Mean comparisons between individuals exposed to the message and those who were not

	Message (n = 1948)	Control (n = 617)
	M (SD)	M (SD)	t	Two-sided p	Cohen’s d
Severity	4.11 (.55)	3.98 (.63)	4.52	<.001	.22
Susceptibility	3.54 (.97)	3.31 (1.10)	4.63	<.001	.22
Self-Efficacy	3.67 (.76)	3.44 (.90)	5.64	<.001	.28
Response Efficacy	3.93 (.57)	3.8 (.67)	4.47	<.001	.21
Attitude	3.92 (.82)	3.76 (.89)	3.71	<.001	.19
Intention	75.11 (18.98)	72.17 (20.44)	3.16	.002	.15

Figure 1. Dynamic fear responses among four message groups.

T1 represents baseline fear, measured before participants were exposed to any message. T2 captures peak fear, measured after participants viewed the threat portion of the message. T3 refers to end fear, measured after participants completed viewing the entire fear appeal message. Participants in all four message conditions produced fear responses that first rose and then fell.