Is a success story of an underdog more powerful than one of a similar other? examining effects of model similarity and success attribution on intention to exercise

ABSTRACT

Success stories are often used to promote health behaviors. This study examined how different features of others’ success stories about achieving an exercise goal influence observers’ intentions to exercise. The specific factors examined were success stories’ model similarity (similar vs. underdog model) and success attribution type (internal vs. external attribution message) on individuals’ expectations of their success and intentions to exercise. The results of an online experiment (N = 282) showed that success stories of similar models led to greater success expectancy than those of underdog models through the increased perception of model similarity. Further, success stories focusing on external – as opposed to internal – attribution resulted in greater success expectancy through increased external attribution of models’ success. Success expectancy then increased intention to exercise. This study concludes by discussing the theoretical implications for social cognitive theory and attribution theory as well as practical implications for designing health promotion messages.

KEYWORDS:

• Success stories
• underdog stories
• model similarity
• attribution
• success expectancy

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1. We used the attention check in the same manner as Hall and Raimi (2018). Our attention check reads “If you are reading this question, please select option 1.” Participants were excluded if they selected an answer other than 1.

2. The underdog models were expected to be less similar to the participants than the similar models, but they were also expected to be in worse conditions than the participants and similar models. To check this assumption, we measured the favorability of exercise conditions in terms of discretionary time for exercise, exercise experience, and the physical abilities of the models and participants themselves (0 to 10 Likert-type scale). Compared to participants’ own conditions (M =  2.97, SD =  1.44), the participants perceived the underdog models’ conditions (M =  2.46, SD =  1.52) to be significantly worse (t[140] =  −3.41, p <  .001, Cohen’s d =  .35), while they perceived the similar other’s conditions (M =  3.60, SD =  1.43) to be similar to their own (t[140] =  1.87, p =  .064, Cohen’s d =  .17).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea and the National Research Foundation of Korea [NRF-S-2021-2015-000].

Notes on contributors

Lihong Quan

Lihong Quan (M.A., Sungkyunkwan University) is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Media and Communication at Sungkyunkwan University. Her research interests include health communication and computer-mediated communication.

Sungeun Chung

Sungeun Chung (Ph.D., University of Maryland) is Professor in the Department of Media and Communication at Sungkyunkwan University, Seoul, Korea. His research focuses on persuasion and social influence. His research has been published in the field’s premier journals including Communication Monographs, Human Communication Research, Journal of Communication, Communication Research, Health Communication and Media Psychology.

Youllee Kim

Youllee Kim (Ph.D., Pennsylvania State University) is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication Studies at University of Denver. Her research focuses on health communication, social influence, and community-based health interventions.

Jiyeon So

Jiyeon So (Ph.D., University of California, Santa Barbara) is an associate professor at the Department of Communication at Yonsei University. Her research focuses on health communication, persuasion, and unintended message effects.