Emotional responses to prosocial messages increase willingness to self-isolate during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Pers Individ Dif
; 170: 110420, 2021 Feb 15.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-867031
ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic may be one of the greatest modern societal challenges that requires widespread collective action and cooperation. While a handful of actions can help reduce pathogen transmission, one critical behavior is to self-isolate. Public health messages often use persuasive language to change attitudes and behaviors, which can evoke a wide range of negative and positive emotional responses. In a U.S. representative sample (N = 955), we presented two messages that leveraged either threatening or prosocial persuasive language, and measured self-reported emotional reactions and willingness to self-isolate. Although emotional responses to the interventions were highly heterogeneous, personality traits known to be linked with distinct emotional experiences (extraversion and neuroticism) explained significant variance in the arousal response. While results show that both types of appeals increased willingness to self-isolate (Cohen's d = 0.41), compared to the threat message, the efficacy of the prosocial message was more dependent on the magnitude of the evoked emotional response on both arousal and valence dimensions. Together, these results imply that prosocial appeals have the potential to be associated with greater compliance if they evoke highly positive emotional responses.
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Type of study:
Qualitative research
Language:
English
Journal:
Pers Individ Dif
Year:
2021
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
J.paid.2020.110420
Similar
MEDLINE
...
LILACS
LIS