The role of emotionally persuasive messages in the skin cancer prevention campaign

ABSTRACT

Despite a multitude of social campaigns and widely publicized scientific evidence of how excessive, unprotected sun exposure damages the skin and is a key cause of the skin cancer, people continue to crowd the beaches, oftentimes without any sunscreen protection. Also numbers of those who use sunscreen on a daily basis remain low. In this study, we analyze how the attitudes toward tanning and behavior of sunscreen use change under the influence of persuasive messages. We compare the effectiveness of an emotionally neutral persuasive message to an emotionally negative persuasive message. We show that persuasive messages combining fear with other negative emotions are successful, however, those generating negative emotions are not significantly more effective than emotionally neutral messages. Furthermore, our results show that while persuasive messages can change the attitudes toward tanning, they do not directly lead to a behavioral change in terms of sunscreen use intentions. However, as we show, the tanning attitude mediates the relationship between persuasive message and the attitude toward sunscreen use and intentions to use it. The resulting change in the tanning attitude contributes to a change in the attitude toward use of sunscreen.

KEYWORDS:

• skin cancer prevention
• emotionally negative persuasive messages
• sunscreen
• tanning attitudes

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Joanna Flicińska-Turkiewicz

Joanna Flicińska-Turkiewicz earned her PhD in management, (minor in marketing) from the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun. She has international research experience with Hogeschool Utrecht (The Netherlands) and Pablo de Olavide University in Seville (Spain). Her research focuses on communication and marketing. Her research interests revolve around social campaigns and changing attitudes, as well as, healthcare. She is an Assistant Professor at Gniezno College Milenium.

Agnieszka Chwialkowska

AgnieszkaChwialkowska holds a Ph.D. in management from Nicolaus Copernicus University and a Ph.D. in marketing from the University of Vaasa. She is an Associate Professor of Marketing at the University of West Georgia and teaches international marketing, cross-cultural communication, consumer behavior, sales management, and advertising. Her research interests include international business and marketing, green marketing, and sustainability.

Dariusz Karaś

Dariusz Karaś, PhD obtained a doctoral degree at the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun (Poland) in the field of econometrics. He spent scientific stays at Universidad de Castilla La Mancha (Spain), Lake Como School of Advanced Studies (Italy) and Coventry University (England). His scientific interests focus in the field of game theory and behavioral economics. He conducts research in the field of optimal use of resources and decision-making processes in relation to morality, hypocrisy and conformity.