EXPRESS: Tainted by Stigma: The Interplay of Stigma and Moral Identity in Health Persuasion

The current research examines the interactive effect of consumers’ moral identity and risk factor stigma on health message effectiveness. We theorize that engaging in advocated health behaviors has moral associations; however, a stigmatized risk factor in a message “taints” the morality of the advocated health behavior. Thus, consumers with high (vs. low) moral identity are more likely to comply with health messages when risk factor stigma is low, and this positive moral identity effect is undermined when risk factor stigma is high. We test stigma’s threat to moral identity by measuring defensive processing (studies 1 and 2) and the attenuating effect of self-affirmation on the negative effect of stigma (studies 3 and 4). We apply the stigma-by-association principle to develop and test a messaging intervention (study 5). Our studies suggest that, depending on whether a health message contains stigmatized risk factors, marketers could employ a combination of tactics such as activating moral identity, offering self-affirming message frames, and/or highlighting low stigma risk factors to bolster message effectiveness.

“Bumps in the Road”: A Pilot Study of a Therapeutic Technique for the Integration of Unresolved Family Loss and Trauma

The ability to sustain a coherent narrative about experiences of trauma and loss is a prominent feature of secure-autonomous attachment states of mind as assessed in narrative tasks such as the Adult Attachment Interview. The current study examines the clinical application of the concepts of narrative coherence and discourse segregation within a therapeutic intervention for whole families. Bumps in the Road is a family drawing task, which aims to facilitate the co-construction of family narratives about adversities such as trauma, loss and hardship. The technique aims to increase the family’s narrative coherence about such challenging events. The paper first presents a description of the task itself together with the discourse theories of defensive processing of adverse events. The study also presents pilot quantitative findings from 19 parents on the psychometric properties of a coding system of the families’ discourses in undertaking the task and the therapist’s techniques in administering the task. The predictive association of coding of the narratives were examined as predictors of change in internalising and externalising symptoms in the referred child, using the Child Behaviour Checklist. Findings showed that therapist competence in administration of the task did significantly predict the magnitude of treatment efficacy. The current study is the first presentation of this novel therapeutic task and sets a platform for further research on the use of narrative tasks and the formal coding of discourse in therapeutic work with children and families.

Too scared to shop: The role of apatephobia, trust, risk, and suspicion in market exchanges

According to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, in 2018 there were over 1.4 million reports of fraud resulting in an estimated loss to consumers of $1.48 billion (Federal Trade Commission, 2019). A natural reaction to the prevalence of fraudulent transactions is apatephobia, or a fear of intentional deception leading to less desirable outcomes in a market exchange. The current paper relates apatephobia to the literature on trust, risk, suspicion, defensive processing, emotions, and counterfactual thinking and offers 15 propositions related to these constructs. Further, a nomological network is proposed which relates these constructs together, identifies the conditions under which apatephobia will result in a consumer declining to engage in an exchange, and the feedback mechanism by which being deceived strengthens the motivation to avoid any future reoccurrence. Little academic attention has been paid to a fear of being deceived, thus I expect the current work to be of interest to researchers in the area of trust, risk, and deception.

Choosing to Regulate Emotions: Pursuing Emotion Goals in Autonomy-Supportive and Controlling Contexts

We applied self-determination theory to emotion regulation and tested the potential effects of autonomy-supportive and controlling contexts on the pursuit of emotion goals. In four experimental studies ( N = 242), participants viewed a fear-eliciting film clip or emotion-eliciting pictures and were prompted to pursue emotion goals with either autonomy-supportive or controlling instructions. Participants in both conditions were equally likely to engage in emotion regulation when directly instructed to do so. However, when they were allowed to spontaneously choose whether to regulate emotions or not, participants in the autonomy-supportive contexts were more likely than those in the controlling ones to independently pursue emotion goals. The latter also engaged in more defensive processing of emotion-eliciting stimuli than the former. These results indicate that people are more likely to pursue emotion goals of their own accord when the context in which they pursue them is autonomy supportive, rather than controlling.

Self-affirmation and defensive processing of graphic cigarette warning labels by African American smokers: A community-based study

Objective: Promoting smoking cessation through effective health messaging among African American smokers is of great urgency as African Americans suffer disproportionally more from smoking-related diseases compared to White smokers. This research examines the potential impact of self-affirmation on reducing defensive processing of graphic cigarette warning labels among African American smokers. Method: We conducted an experimental study in which participants were instructed to self-affirm (or not) prior to viewing graphic cigarette warning labels. Results: We found that although self-affirmation had no main effect on defensive processing, it interacted with initial/preexisting attitudes towards smoking to influence defensive responses such as message derogation and perceived message manipulation. For participants with more positive initial attitudes towards smoking, self-affirmation led to reduced message derogation and perceived message manipulation. For these individuals, we also found an indirect effect of self-affirmation on intentions to quit smoking through perceived message manipulation. Self-affirmation had largely no effects on participants with less positive initial attitudes towards smoking. Conclusion: The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

FEW SELF-INVOLVED AGENTS AMONG BOUNDED CONFIDENCE AGENTS CAN CHANGE NORMS

Social issues are generally discussed by highly-involved and less-involved people to build social norms defining what has to be thought and done about them. As self-involved agents share different attitude dynamics to other agents [Wood, W., Pool, G., Leck, K. and Purvis, D., Self-definition, defensive processing, and influence: The normative impact of majority and minority groups, J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. (1996) 1181–1193], we study the emergence and evolution of norms through an individual-based model involving these two types of agents. The dynamics of self-involved agents is drawn from [Huet, S. and Deffuant, G., Openness leads to opinion stability and narrowness to volatility, Adv. Complex Syst. 13 (2010) 405–423], and the dynamics of others, from [Deffuant, G., Neau, D., Amblard, F. and Weisbuch, G., Mixing beliefs among interacting agents, Adv. Complex Syst. 3 (2001) 87–98]. The attitude of an agent is represented as a segment on a continuous attitudinal space. Two agents are close if their attitude segments share sufficient overlap. Our agents discuss two different issues, one of which, called main issue, is more important for the self-involved agents than the other, called secondary issue. Self-involved agents are attracted to both issues if they are close to the main issue, but shift away from their peer’s opinion if they are only close on the secondary issue. Differently, non-self-involved agents are attracted by other agents when they are close on both the main and secondary issues. We observe the emergence of various types of extreme minor clusters. In one or different groups of attitudes, they can lead to an already-built moderate norm or a norm polarized on secondary and/or main issues. They can also push disagreeing agents gathered in different groups to a global moderate consensus.

I Am Aware of My Inconsistencies but Can Tolerate Them

We examined how listeners characterized by empathy and a non-judgmental approach affect speakers’ attitude structure. We hypothesized that high quality listening decreases speakers’ social anxiety, which in turn reduces defensive processing. This reduction in defensive processing was hypothesized to result in an awareness of contradictions (increased objective-attitude ambivalence), and decreased attitude extremity. Moreover, we hypothesized that experiencing high quality listening would enable speakers to tolerate contradictory responses, such that listening would attenuate the association between objective- and subjective-attitude ambivalence. We obtained consistent support for our hypotheses across four laboratory experiments that manipulated listening experience in different ways on a range of attitude topics. The effects of listening on objective-attitude ambivalence were stronger for higher dispositional social anxiety and initial objective-attitude ambivalence (Study 4). Overall, the results suggest that speakers’ attitude structure can be changed by a heretofore unexplored interpersonal variable: merely providing high quality listening.

A pilot randomised test of a self-affirmation implementation intention intervention to reduce dietary salt intake

Self-affirmation may reduce defensive processing towards health messages. We tested the effects of a self-affirmation implementation intentional intervention with regard to salt risk message acceptance, estimates of daily-recommended intake and self-reported intake. Participants ( n = 65) who consumed over 6 g/day of salt were randomised into three conditions: self-affirmation, self-affirming implementation intention and control. Participants attended the laboratory and completed a 2-week follow-up. There was no effect of the condition on message acceptance, salt estimation and 2-week salt intake. Across conditions, 2-week salt intake was reduced. We found no evidence for either intervention with regard to salt risk message acceptance and behaviour change.