title: Fear, anger, fruits, and veggies: interactive effects of emotion and message framing on health behavior.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Message framing is a theoretically grounded health communication strategy designed to motivate action by emphasizing either the benefits of engaging in a particular behavior (gains) or the costs of failing to engage in the behavior (losses). This study investigated whether the effectiveness of a framed message depends on the emotional state of the message recipient. We examined effects of fear versus anger, emotions that frequently occur within the context of health decision-making.
  
  
  METHODS
  Undergraduate students (N = 133) were randomly assigned to complete a fear or anger induction task after which they read a gain- or loss-framed pamphlet promoting fruit and vegetable consumption. Fruit and vegetable intake (servings per day) subsequently was assessed over the following 2 weeks.
  
  
  RESULTS
  As predicted, a significant frame by emotion interaction was observed, such that participants in the fear condition reported eating more servings of fruits and vegetables after exposure to a loss-framed message than to a gain-framed message. In contrast, participants in the anger condition reported eating (marginally) more servings of fruits and vegetables after exposure to a gain-framed message than to a loss-framed message. Greater increases in fruit and vegetable intake from baseline to follow-up were observed when the message frame was matched to the participant's emotional state.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The effectiveness of framed health communications depends on the message recipient's current emotional state. Affective factors that are incidental to the behavior recommended in a health communication can affect the relative success of gain- and loss-framed appeals.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Humanities and Social Sciences, College of Medicine, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306-4300, USA. mary.gerend@med.fsu.edu
authors.forename: Mary A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Gerend
authors.forename: Jon K
authors.initials: JK
authors.lastname: Maner
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000786:Anger; D003657:Decision Making; D005239:Fear; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D005638:Fruit; D015438:Health Behavior; D058015:Health Communication; D006293:Health Promotion; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology*; D014675:Vegetables