The effect of the level of fear appeal on attitude towards advertising and behavioural intention

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Fear appeals are commonly used in the advertising of social issues, such asdrunken driving. In general, researchers believe that there is a positiverelationship between fear and persuasion (to adapt misbehaviour). However,there are disputes amongst fear appeal researchers about the level of fearappeal to be used. Fear appeals, like other advertising appeals employed inadvertising, is dependant on the traits of the target audience. The effect offear appeals differ for different target audiences as different people feardifferent matters.This study tests one of the contemporary models on the working of fearappeals, namely activation theory. Young adults are the target audience ofsocial marketing in South Africa for anti-alcohol abuse issues, such asdrunken driving. The effect of fear appeals on the target audience has neverbeen empirically investigated in South Africa although social marketers oftenemploy fear appeals to bring about a change in behaviour.The responses of a sample of young adults in South Africa were tested bymeans of a quasi-experimental design based on Thayer's activationdeactivation checklist as implemented by previous fear appeal researchers.Three television advertisements that depict three levels of fear appeal (low,medium and high) were presented to three sample groups.Significant differences in the responses of the level of fear appeal wereobserved after statistical analyses in terms of tension arousal, energy arousal,attitude towards the advertisement and intention to engage in drunken driving.A difference in how genders react to fear appeals was also found.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University