title: The war on prevention: bellicose cancer metaphors hurt (some) prevention intentions.
abstract: Cancer health information is dominated by enemy and war metaphors intended to motivate the public to "fight" cancer. However, enemy metaphoric framing may influence understanding of, and responses to, cancer. Cancer prevention benefits from avoiding risk increasing behaviors, yet self-limitation is not closely associated with fighting enemies. If so, the metaphor may hurt prevention intentions involving self-limitation. Participants read messages with minute wording variations that established different metaphoric frames. Results show that metaphorically framing cancer as an enemy lessens the conceptual accessibility of (Study 1) and intention for self-limiting prevention behaviors while not increasing intention for monitoring and treatment behaviors (Studies 2 and 3). Framing self-limiting prevention behaviors in terms of fighting an enemy increases their appeal, illustrating the benefits of metaphor matching (Study 3). Overall, these results suggest that enemy metaphors in cancer information reduce some prevention intentions without increasing others, making their use potentially harmful for public health.
authors.affiliation: University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA djhauser@umich.edu.
authors.forename: David J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Hauser
authors.affiliation: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, USA.
authors.forename: Norbert
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Schwarz
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D005260:Female; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006293:Health Promotion / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D033181:Information Dissemination / Q000379:methods*; D033182:Intention; D008297:Male; D019365:Metaphor; D008875:Middle Aged; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000517:prevention & control* / Q000523:psychology; D011932:Reading; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: behavioral intention; cancer; health information; metaphoric framing; metaphors