title: Hails from the crypt: a terror management health model investigation of the effectiveness of health-oriented versus celebrity-oriented endorsements.
abstract: Interfacing the terror management health model with the meaning transfer model, we offer novel hypotheses concerning the effectiveness of celebrity and medical endorsements for consumer products and health behavior decisions. Studies 1 and 2 revealed that, compared with control topic primes, death thoughts in focal attention increased the effectiveness of health-oriented (doctor) endorsers but not culture-oriented (celebrity) endorsers, whereas death thoughts outside of focal attention increased the effectiveness of culture-oriented endorsers but not health-oriented endorsers. Studies 3 and 4 then focus more specifically on the valence and specificity of culture-oriented endorsements, revealing that death thoughts outside focal attention increase the effectiveness of culture-oriented endorsers only on the behaviors specifically endorsed and only when the endorser is characterized as possessing cultural value. Discussion focuses on everyday management of existential concerns and implications for persuasive communications in the health domain.
authors.affiliation: 1University of Missouri-Columbia, USA.
authors.forename: Simon
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: McCabe
authors.forename: Kenneth E
authors.initials: KE
authors.lastname: Vail
authors.forename: Jamie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Arndt
authors.forename: Jamie L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Goldenberg
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001293:Attitude to Death; D015438:Health Behavior; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010565:Persuasive Communication; D012919:Social Behavior; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: endorsement; health; persuasion; terror management