title: The effectiveness of empathy- versus fear-arousing antismoking PSAs.
abstract: Building on a previous study (Shen, 2010), this paper investigates the effectiveness of fear- versus empathy-arousing antismoking PSAs and examines the roles of message-induced fear and state empathy in persuasion. Twelve professionally produced antismoking PSAs were used as stimuli messages in a 3 (message type: empathy, fear vs. control) × 4 (messages) mixed design study. The 260 participants were randomly assigned to each message type and watched four PSAs presented in a random sequence. Results from multilevel modeling analyses showed that empathy-arousing messages are potentially more effective than fear-arousing ones. Both fear and state empathy were found to have a positive direct effect on persuasion. However, fear also had a negative indirect impact on persuasion by activating psychological reactance, while state empathy also had a positive indirect effect by inhibiting psychological reactance. Implications for persuasion, health communication campaigns, and future research were discussed.
authors.affiliation: Department of Speech Communication, University of Georgia, 110 Terrell Hall, Athens, GA 30602, USA. lshen@uga.edu
authors.forename: Lijiang
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Shen
mesh_terms: D001294:Attitude to Health; D004645:Empathy; D005239:Fear / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006293:Health Promotion / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012907:Smoking / Q000523:psychology; D016540:Smoking Cessation / Q000379:methods* / Q000523:psychology; D055815:Young Adult