Investigating message-framing effects in the context of a tailored intervention promoting physical activity.
Health-promoting messages can be framed in terms of the gains associated with healthy behaviour or the losses associated with unhealthy behaviour. It has been argued that gain-framed messages promoting physical activity (PA) are more effective than loss-framed messages, but empirical findings are inconsistent. Also, no previous studies investigated the effects of gain- and loss-framed messages in the context of a computer-tailored PA intervention. In this study, we provided participants with computer-generated tailored feedback concerning their PA levels. In total, 787 participants entered in the study, of whom 299 completed all measures at a 3-month follow-up. We investigated whether gain- and loss-framed messages promoting PA affected information acceptance, attitude, intention and behaviour differently. The results showed that gain-framed messages resulted in stronger intentions to be physically active than loss-framed messages. This did not result in a significant increase in actual PA, however, as measured by a 3-month follow-up assessment. For information acceptance and attitude, a non-significant advantage of gain-framed messages was found. All effects had small effect sizes. Thus, whereas gain-framed information might be more persuasive than loss-framed information when it comes to promoting PA, the differences between gain- and loss-framed messages are likely to be small.
Agricultural Economics Research Institute, Wageningen University.esearch Centre, PO Box 29703, 2502 LS The Hague, The Netherlands. jonathan.vantriet@wur.nl
Jonathan
J
van 't Riet
Robert A C
RA
Ruiter
Marieke Q
MQ
Werrij
Hein
H
de Vries
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D015444:Exercise; D005260:Female; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006293:Health Promotion / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009426:Netherlands; D010565:Persuasive Communication; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D055815:Young Adult