Self- and Response Efficacy Information in Fear Appeals: A Meta-Analysis

Fear appeals are designed to inspire intended and actual actions to avert a danger. Although prior meta-analyses report that the average effect of fear appeals is moderately positive, the role of efficacy information is not completely understood. Prior work and fear appeal theories have argued that the presence of both response and self-efficacy information improves fear appeal success but the individual impacts of each have not been properly estimated. A meta-analysis (k = 158, N = 19,736) was conducted to examine the individual and combined effects of response and self-efficacy information contained in fear appeals on behavioral intentions and behaviors. Estimating the impact of fear appeals relative to low and no fear controls, the meta-analysis showed that fear appeals had a stronger influence on behavioral outcomes when they included positive response efficacy information but did not vary as a function of including self-efficacy information or negative response efficacy information.

An informed approach to the development of primary care pediatric firearm safety messages

Background Firearm ownership is prevalent in the US and many children spend time in areas where firearms are not stored safely. The AAP recommends firearm safety counseling at pediatric well-visits. Methods We developed and tested six contextual messages to promote safe firearm storage based on: absence of harm, collective appeal to understanding child behavior, pediatrician’s authority, evidence-based, fear appeal, and general safety considerations. One hundred four parents who keep firearms at home were recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk Prime and viewed video messages and reported behavioral intentions and emotional reactions following each message. Results All six contextual messages were perceived as important and believable and increased parents’ intentions to follow safety advice provided, but also elicited negative emotions. The authority message elicited more negative emotions and resulted in lower intentions to follow safe storage advice. Conclusions Including firearm messages with other child safety advice merits further evaluation. Authority messages should be avoided.

The Antecedents of Impulse Buying Behavior During Covid-19 Pandemic: Revealing the Role of Panic Buying, Government Stimulus, Perceived Scarcity, and Fear Appeals

COVID-19 pandemic spread around the world and changed people's shopping habits. This phenomenon causes much fear and induces panic behavior. In a highly uncertain situation, many people are more likely to engage in impulse buying behavior during this period. Our research aims to examine that impulse buying behavior during the pandemic. Hypothesis testing in this study uses the path analysis technique, which is processed using a computer with a program that has been developed by Preacher-Hayes, namely the Macros PROCESS technique. The research finds that panic buying, government stimulus, perceived scarcity, and fear appeal have a significant direct effect on impulse buying behavior. We went a step further to test the indirect effects. The indirect test supports our hypothesis by using fear appeal as mediating variable. The result indicates that fear appeal mediates between panic buying, whereas impulse buying behavior has no significant effect. Furthermore, fear appeal mediates between government stimulus, and scarcity of essential products has a significant effect on impulse buying behavior.

Fear vs humor appeals: a comparative study of children's responses to anti-smoking advertisements

PurposeThis study aims to examine the different effects that the fear and humor appeals in anti-smoking advertisements for children have on their affective reactions to the advertisements, on their beliefs about smoking and on their behavioral intentions to smoke.Design/methodology/approachThis paper presents the findings of a qualitative research study conducted in Italy with children aged from 8 to 11 years.FindingsThe results indicated that the humor appeal is a useful method for conveying a social theme in a pleasant way and creating a likable character that becomes an example for children to imitate; however, it is necessary to employ the fear appeal to make children reflect carefully about the negative consequences of smoking.Research limitations/implicationsThis study examined only children's behavioral intentions derived from anti-smoking advertisements, but future research should also examine their real behaviors after a period following repeated viewing of public service announcements about smoking prevention or other social issues.Practical implicationsUnderstanding how different types of appeals can influence children represents an important result for the prevention of youth smoking and the promotion of healthy lifestyle habits during childhood.Social implicationsUnderstanding how different types of appeals can influence children represents an important result for the prevention of youth smoking and the promotion of healthy lifestyle habits during childhood.Originality/valueFew studies have examined the impact of social advertisements on children, and particularly little is known about the effectiveness of fear appeals on this group.

Segmentasi Pasar dalam Komunikasi Pemasaran Islam

Segmenting or often known as market segmentation is the act of classifying the market into groups with various categories. Sixty per cents (60%) of business failures are caused by failing to define the target market, their market potential, and failing to decide the right marketing concepts. Entrepreneurs tend to do more expansion in areas that they don't understand just because they are opportunists, making the most of people's fears and hesitancies. Marketing communication can be so powerful if it is combined with effective and efficient communication. For example, a communication on how to attract consumers or audiences to become aware, familiarized and interested in buying a product or service through communication channels. The current study is literatures study which analyses and thoroughly studies literatures to find data. In Islamic ethics, segmentation techniques in marketing communications are not justified using sexual appeal, emotional appeal, fear appeal, false testimony or pseudo-marketing research, or contribute to stupidity of mind and encourage overbuy. In the Islamic framework, these methods are unethical because they are used purely to exploit the basic instincts of consumers around the world with the aim of gaining profit and bigger market preys. In addition, Islamic ethics strictly prohibits stereotypes of women in advertising, and excessive use of "fantasy" either in product forms, services or other added value. Apart from innovation, Islamic marketing communication is also obliged to pay attention to efficiency. In order for marketing communications to be effective, we don't act on a whim. We can carry out marketing efficiency with high foresight to target markets that match the products and services we have.

Fear appeal cues to motivate users' security protection behaviors: an empirical test of heuristic cues to enhance risk communication

PurposeFirms continue to struggle with end users who do not follow recommended actions for safeguarding information security. Thus, the authors utilize insights gained from studies on heuristic processing of risk information to design cues in fear appeal messages more effectively so as to more strongly engender fear among users, which can in turn lead them to take protective actions toward information security. Specifically, four types of fear appeal cues are identified: numeric risk communication, social distance and goal framing in verbal risk communication and visual risk communication.Design/methodology/approachDrawing from protection motivation theory, the authors hypothesize that these fear appeal cues can engender fear among users to a greater extent. In addition, the authors hypothesize that users will perceive a higher level of severity and susceptibility when they perceive a large amount of fear. The research hypotheses were tested employing data collected through a laboratory experiment. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) and regression analyses were performed to analyze the data.FindingsThe study's results suggest that numeric and visual risk communication cues in security notices can significantly increase the amount of fear felt by users. In addition, social distance was found to marginally increase the amount of fear felt by users. However, unlike our expectation, goal framing was not found to increase the amount of fear when the other three types of fear appeal cues were also given in a security notice. It was also found that induced fear can increase the severity and susceptibility of threats as perceived by users.Originality/valueThe study contributes to the literature on fear appeal cues designed to promote users' security protection behaviors. No prior study has designed security notices featuring the four different types of fear appeal cues and empirically tested the effectiveness of those cues in inducing fear among users. The findings suggest that the design of fear appeal cues can be improved by understanding individuals' heuristic processing of risk information, which can be subject to cognitive biases.

Meta Analysis of Consumer Behavior Changes During The Covid-19 Pandemic Research

The aim of this study is (1) to analyse the development of consumer behaviour research during the Covid-19 pandemic (2) to identify theoretical and empirical contributions from the results of research on consumer behaviour during the Covid-19 pandemic. Co word analysis with VOS Viewer used to answer the first research objective, and quantitative analysis was used to answer the second research objective. The results show that the development of consumer behaviour research during the Covid-19 pandemic is mostly related to the exploration of changes in the types of needs, types of products and priorities of consumer needs during the Covid-19 pandemic. On the other hand, research that needs to be developed is changing online consumer purchasing decisions; Consumer buying behaviour is related to psychological factors, product choice (mainly fresh food ingredients and staple foods), Consistency in purchasing; consistency of changes in consumer habits; awareness and consideration of consumer risk and consumer behaviour during a pandemic. Fundamental theories used in this research include theory of Fear Appeal, Maslow, TAM and TPB. The results showed that there was a model development through the S-O-R computational decision tree ensemble model with Bagging.