It generally describes a strategy for motivating people to take a particular action, endorse a particular policy, or buy a particular product, by arousing fear.
The goal of each of these has been to conceptualize the influence of fear on persuasion so as to better understand how to employ it in addressing the public on a number of social issues.
Thus according to the extended parallel process model, the experience of fear is considered an emotional reaction, and the perceptions of threat are a set of cognitions.
According to the theory, a threat that portrays the negative consequences of non-compliance to a recommended behavior is expected to create fear.
For example, a dental hygiene presentation to a group of high school students reported greater change in attitudes using mild rather than strong fear appeals.
To assess the efficacy of a fear appeal respondents would be asked about the likelihood and severity of harmful outcomes of risk involved.
The protection motivation theory has been applied to analyzing the efficacy of health campaigns such as those encouraging self-breast examinations for detecting breast cancer.
[8] According to the theory of reasoned action, acting on fear appeals begins by consideration of a wider range of consequences of continuing the current behavior beyond the threat of health risks.
For example, it has helped identify the importance of peer pressure and the normative belief of parents as variables for improving school-based drug campaigns.
It is predicted that individuals will remain at this stage for a long period of time due to the difficulty in evaluating the advantages and disadvantages of behavior change.
The transtheoretical model has been used to structure various programs for smoking cessation, alcohol abstinence, sunscreen use, dietary change, and contraceptive use.
Researchers have examined several variables that have been thought, at one time or another, to influence the persuasive effect of fear appeals.
The results of the research have demonstrated that various, and sometimes multiple factors, affect the efficacy of fear appeals depending on the method used and the individual.
[11] The goal has been to understand which individual differences in personality or psychological traits contribute or detract from the effectiveness of the fear appeal.
Individual moderating variables studied thus far include trait anxiety,[6] age, ethnicity, gender, coping style,[12] locus of control,[13] self-esteem, perceived vulnerability, need for cognition and uncertainty orientation.
If the individual does not believe that he or she is capable of averting the threat, it is likely that denial or other defensive responses will be produced in order to lower the fear.
Research done by others have revealed "a positive, linear effect of fear on overall intentions and behavior", especially when the messages endorse people's self-efficacy.
If others are observed to successfully perform threatening activities, then self-efficacy is expected to increase because the social comparison will reinforce the perception that the behavior can be achieved through effort.
The enactment of sustained long-term behaviors intended by the fear appeal communication is strongly influenced by the individual perception of treatment efficacy.
Reinforcement of the negative health behavior by the common social group decreases the effectiveness of the fear appeal.
Those who believed that heavy intoxication was an element of campus culture may be at a greater risk for personal alcohol abuse due to the desire to conform to the perceived norm.
[18] The strength of the fear elicited by the message is also an important determinant of the subject's intentions to change the target behavior.
[14] With rare exception, strength of the fear elicited has been consistently found to be positively correlated with behavior change.
Another argument states that since higher levels of personal efficacy are necessary, the target of the fear appeal who is most likely to act is one who is most likely to change his behavior to begin with.
[2] It is thought that when perceived susceptibility is high, defense motivations prevent even poor information or weak arguments from detracting from the message's impact on intention.
However, when either self or response efficacy is low, the individual, perceiving that they are unable to avert the threat, may rely on defensive avoidance to lower their fear.
This is because, while anxiety can motivate positive health behaviour, it can also be maladaptive, as some individuals form a defensive response to mitigate the negative feeling arising from the fear appeal.
[31] While there have been mixed results regarding whether fear appeals elicit a defense response, it is important to note that studies exploring this relationship are done in a laboratory setting free of external distractions and where participants are told to focus on the health messages.
For example, people who regularly engage in behaviours which are damaging to health (e.g. smoking and other drug use) have been found to typically have lower self-efficacy than others.
[30] There is also a concern that fear appeals give rise to stigmatisation of those who are seen to be already suffering the negative consequences of the undesirable behaviour.