Effects of Message Anxiety on Disease Detection and Health Promotion Behaviors

Abstract

Research examining the effects of anxiety or fear appeals on health attitudes has produced inconsistent findings. In this article it was proposed that anxiety messages would be differentially effective with different types of health-related behavior. Specifically, it was hypothesized that messages that produce high levels of anxiety would be more effective with health promotion behaviors than with disease detection behaviors, and that this effect would reverse with messages that produce low levels of anxiety. To test this hypothesis the participants received either high- or low-anxiety messages promoting the performance of either health promotion or disease detection behaviors. Then participants were required to indicate their agreement with the message, their attitudes about the behavior, and their intentions to perform the behavior. The results indicated that the participants responded more positively to high-anxiety messages about health promotion behaviors than about disease detection behaviors.

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