Threat, Fear, and Persuasion: Review and Critique of Questions About Functional Form
Theories of threat appeals have been rightly concerned with the form of the relationship between fear and persuasion: Linear or curvilinear. They have not, however, clearly distinguished the question as a between- or within-persons phenomenon. In fact, the literature often treats these two perspecti...
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Review of Communication Research
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doaj-9de369ea6f5249a294fdb07fca8e85932020-11-25T02:18:24ZengReview of Communication ResearchReview of Communication Research2255-41652014-01-01219411410.12840/issn.2255-4165.2014.02.01.004Threat, Fear, and Persuasion: Review and Critique of Questions About Functional FormLijiang ShenJames Price DillardTheories of threat appeals have been rightly concerned with the form of the relationship between fear and persuasion: Linear or curvilinear. They have not, however, clearly distinguished the question as a between- or within-persons phenomenon. In fact, the literature often treats these two perspectives as if they were interchangeable. We show that between- versus within-person questions about functional form are distinct from one another. Previous research, which is the product of between-persons designs, shows a linear relationship between fear and persuasion. Betweenpersons studies cannot address the question of how changes in fear over time produce persuasion. Consequently, a major piece of the fear appeals-persuasion puzzle may have been overlooked. Reanalysis of an existing data set shows curvilinearity of fear in within-persons data and demonstrates that the curve predicts persuasion. Audience segmentation reveals different curves for different groups as well as differential associations between those curves and persuasion. Overall, the argument and the empirical results suggest that a great deal less is known about fear appeals than it is currently believed. http://www.rcommunicationr.org/index.php/articles/volume2-2014/viewdownload/13-volume-2-2014/26-shen-dillard-2014-threat-fear-and-persuasiondrive modelparallel processingEPPMthreatfearpersuasionlatent growth curve modelinghealthinfluenza |
collection |
DOAJ |
language |
English |
format |
Article |
sources |
DOAJ |
author |
Lijiang Shen James Price Dillard |
spellingShingle |
Lijiang Shen James Price Dillard Threat, Fear, and Persuasion: Review and Critique of Questions About Functional Form Review of Communication Research drive model parallel processing EPPM threat fear persuasion latent growth curve modeling health influenza |
author_facet |
Lijiang Shen James Price Dillard |
author_sort |
Lijiang Shen |
title |
Threat, Fear, and Persuasion: Review and Critique of Questions About Functional Form |
title_short |
Threat, Fear, and Persuasion: Review and Critique of Questions About Functional Form |
title_full |
Threat, Fear, and Persuasion: Review and Critique of Questions About Functional Form |
title_fullStr |
Threat, Fear, and Persuasion: Review and Critique of Questions About Functional Form |
title_full_unstemmed |
Threat, Fear, and Persuasion: Review and Critique of Questions About Functional Form |
title_sort |
threat, fear, and persuasion: review and critique of questions about functional form |
publisher |
Review of Communication Research |
series |
Review of Communication Research |
issn |
2255-4165 |
publishDate |
2014-01-01 |
description |
Theories of threat appeals have been rightly concerned with the form of the relationship between fear and persuasion: Linear or curvilinear. They have not, however, clearly distinguished the question as a between- or within-persons phenomenon. In fact, the literature often treats these two perspectives as if they were interchangeable. We show that between- versus within-person questions about functional form are distinct from one another. Previous research, which is the product of between-persons designs, shows a linear relationship between fear and persuasion. Betweenpersons studies cannot address the question of how changes in fear over time produce persuasion. Consequently, a major piece of the fear appeals-persuasion puzzle may have been overlooked. Reanalysis of an existing data set shows curvilinearity of fear in within-persons data and demonstrates that the curve predicts persuasion. Audience segmentation reveals different curves for different groups as well as differential associations between those curves and persuasion. Overall, the argument and the empirical results suggest that a great deal less is known about fear appeals than it is currently believed. |
topic |
drive model parallel processing EPPM threat fear persuasion latent growth curve modeling health influenza |
url |
http://www.rcommunicationr.org/index.php/articles/volume2-2014/viewdownload/13-volume-2-2014/26-shen-dillard-2014-threat-fear-and-persuasion |
work_keys_str_mv |
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