Is a diverse sample of college students motivated by compassionate, neutral, or fear-inducing language in COVID-19 crisis messages?

Abstract

Objective: During public health emergencies such as the ongoing COVID-19 illness pandemic, it is essential to rapidly disseminate crisis messages which often contain embedded health directives. This study investigated which of three variants of the same messages (neutral tone, positive/compassionate tone, negative/fear-inducing tone) were most likely to motivate readers to engage in the health behavior proscribed in the message. Participants: Participants were 87 female and 41 male undergraduates at an urban university in the northeast U.S. Methods: A survey with three versions of eight different COVID messages containing health directives was administered. Results: Those who indicated stronger influence of positive/compassionate crisis messages (i.e., had higher Crisis Messages Survey scores) had higher adaptive health engagement scores, lower worry scores, and were likely to have had a past diagnosis of COVID-19. Moreover, a regression model including COVID-19 status and worry scores accounted for a significant proportion of variance in Crisis Messages Survey scores. Conclusions: Findings indicate that the use of neutral and compassionate language is optimal in motivating health behaviors embedded in university crisis messages.

Keywords:

• Community health
• health education

Conflict of interest disclosure

The authors have no conflicts of interest to report. The authors confirm that the research presented in this article met the ethical guidelines, including adherence to the legal requirements, of United States America and received approval from the Institutional Review Board of William Paterson University.

Additional information

Funding

No funding was used to support this research and/or the preparation of the manuscript.