Is a diverse sample of college students motivated by compassionate, neutral, or fear-inducing language in COVID-19 crisis messages?
J Am Coll Health
; : 1-6, 2022 Jul 14.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1931621
ABSTRACT
Objective:
During public health emergencies such as the ongoing COVID-19 illness pandemic, it is essential to rapidly disseminate crisis messages which often contain embedded health directives. This study investigated which of three variants of the same messages (neutral tone, positive/compassionate tone, negative/fear-inducing tone) were most likely to motivate readers to engage in the health behavior proscribed in the message.Participants:
Participants were 87 female and 41 male undergraduates at an urban university in the northeast U.S.Methods:
A survey with three versions of eight different COVID messages containing health directives was administered.Results:
Those who indicated stronger influence of positive/compassionate crisis messages (i.e., had higher Crisis Messages Survey scores) had higher adaptive health engagement scores, lower worry scores, and were likely to have had a past diagnosis of COVID-19. Moreover, a regression model including COVID-19 status and worry scores accounted for a significant proportion of variance in Crisis Messages Survey scores.Conclusions:
Findings indicate that the use of neutral and compassionate language is optimal in motivating health behaviors embedded in university crisis messages.
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Type of study:
Observational study
/
Prognostic study
Topics:
Variants
Language:
English
Journal:
J Am Coll Health
Year:
2022
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
07448481.2022.2098032
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