title: Behavioral Recommendations in Health Research News as Cues to Action: Self-Relevancy and Self-Efficacy Processes.
abstract: This study argues that behavioral recommendations in health news function as cues to action. A proposed self-oriented model seeks to explore the impacts of behavioral recommendations in health research news as cues to action through their influences on self-relevancy and self-efficacy. A content analysis (Study 1) first establishes that health research news commonly features behavioral recommendations. A message experiment (Study 2) then explores the utility of behavioral recommendations as cues to action by demonstrating a self-relevancy effect: Health research news with, as opposed to without, behavioral recommendations increases the self-relevancy of advocated health behaviors, which then improve people's attitudes toward and intentions to adopt those behaviors. A second message experiment (Study 3) tests whether varying presentations of behavioral recommendations alter their effectiveness as cues to action and thus people's behavioral intentions through a dual effect process. In addition to the previously demonstrated self-relevancy effect, this experiment shows that concrete, as opposed to abstract, behavioral recommendations trigger a self-efficacy effect, increasing perceived self-efficacy and further improving behavioral intentions.
authors.affiliation: a College of Communication , National Chengchi University , Taipei , Taiwan.
authors.forename: Chingching
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Chang
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D035843:Biomedical Research; D003463:Cues; D005260:Female; D015438:Health Behavior; D058015:Health Communication; D006801:Humans; D033182:Intention; D008297:Male; D008402:Mass Media; D020377:Self Efficacy