Men's and Women's Responses to Two-Sided Health News Coverage: A Moderated Mediation Model

Abstract

This study explores how audiences respond to news coverage of food and nutrition topics when that coverage provides either 2-sided (positive and negative) information or 1-sided, unanimously positive information. A moderated mediation model helps clarify the different impacts of 2- and 1-sided news coverage and the psychological processes they elicit. Specifically, gender moderates the relative effects of 1- and 2-sided news stories; ambivalent feelings play a mediating role in the process. The findings confirm the model predictions: When reading 2-sided as opposed to 1-sided news, men experience more ambivalent feelings, less favorable attitudes toward the health issues, and lower intentions to adopt the advocated behaviors, whereas women do not exhibit such differences. Moreover, the ambivalent feelings mediate the interaction between gender and news presentation (i.e., 1- or 2-sided) on attitudes toward health issues and behavioral intentions to adopt advocated health behaviors.

Notes

Pretests helped select three magazines that most college students might have read and were suitable (“This magazine is likely to feature health news”) and credible (“Health news stories in this magazine are credible”) for inclusion in the study. Each pair of one- and two-sided stories featured the same magazine titles, as well as the same pictures.

Pretests helped select three magazines that most college students might have read and were suitable (“This magazine is likely to feature health news”) and credible (“Health news stories in this magazine are credible”) for inclusion in the study. Each pair of one- and two-sided stories featured the same magazine titles, as well as the same pictures.

Participants in the main experiment rated each news article on one item, “Information in the news article is credible,” and provided responses higher than the scale midpoint of 4 (ts > 2.29, ps < .03).

In terms of confounding checks, data in the main experiment showed that each pair of one- and two-sided stories did not differ in terms of comprehensibility (three items, 7-point Likert scale: “It is easy to understand this news story,” “It is not difficult to comprehend the news story,” and “Understanding the news story is easy,” all Cronbach's αs > .88), with Fs < .59 and all ps > .44.