Message framing effects in exercise promotions: confounded by linguistic complexity?

Studies of framing effects on health-related intentions and behaviour have been conducted in numerous areas, with contradictory results. These inconsistent results can be partially explained by the differential nature of the behaviours concerned, and by the degree to which people engage in detailed processing of the messages, but there is clearly more to learn about framing effects. This study compared the effectiveness of the communication approaches inherent in the four-cell framing model towards adopting a health-enhancing behaviour (exercise). However we found an atheoretical interaction effect caused by the linguistic complexity of the messages. Disciplines Arts and Humanities | Life Sciences | Medicine and Health Sciences | Social and Behavioral Sciences Publication Details This conference paper was originally published as Jones, SC, Message framing effects in exercise promotions: confounded by linguistic complexity?, in Rentschler, R and Hall, J, Proceedings of At the Threshold: 2nd Australasian Nonprofit and Social Marketing Conference, Deakin University, 22-23 September 2005. This conference paper is available at Research Online: http://ro.uow.edu.au/hbspapers/73 MESSAGE FRAMING EFFECTS IN EXERCISE PROMOTION: CONFOUNDED BY LINGUISTIC COMPLEXITY? Sandra C. Jones University of Wollongong Abstract Studies of framing effects on health-related intentions and behaviour have been conducted in numerous areas, with contradictory results. These inconsistent results can be partially explained by the differential nature of the behaviours concerned, and by the degree to which people engage in detailed processing of the messages, but there is clearly more to learn about framing effects. This study compared the effectiveness of the communication approaches inherent in the four-cell framing model towards adopting a health-enhancing behaviour (exercise). However we found an atheoretical interaction effect caused by the linguistic complexity of the messages.Studies of framing effects on health-related intentions and behaviour have been conducted in numerous areas, with contradictory results. These inconsistent results can be partially explained by the differential nature of the behaviours concerned, and by the degree to which people engage in detailed processing of the messages, but there is clearly more to learn about framing effects. This study compared the effectiveness of the communication approaches inherent in the four-cell framing model towards adopting a health-enhancing behaviour (exercise). However we found an atheoretical interaction effect caused by the linguistic complexity of the messages. Introduction Message framing has been widely examined in the marketing literature – as well as in the health behaviour literature – in relation to, for example: the impact of framing on buying behaviour (Ganzach and Karsahi, 1995; Ganzach, Weber and Or, 1997; Puto, 1987); preand post-consumption evaluations (Levin and Gaeth, 1988); feelings and cognitions about advertisements (Homes and Yoon, 1992); the relationship between framing and issue involvement (Maheswaran and Meyers-Levy, 1990); the interaction between message framing effects and need for cognition (Zhnag and Buda, 1999); and perceptions of the price-perceived risk relationship (Grewal, Gotlieb and Marmorstein, 1994). The term ‘framing’ has been interpreted to mean different things in various studies, with the main distinction being between ‘different consequences’ and ‘different behaviours.’ Different consequences framing refers to the framing of information about the consequences in such a way that the same behaviour is presented as having either positive or negative consequences (Rothman et al., 1993). Different consequences (of the same behaviour) framing has been used in studies on surgical preferences (McNeil et al., 1982; McNeil, Pauker, and Tversky, 1988; Witte, 1994). For example: “if a cancerous growth is detected, 19 out of 20 growths will be the less deadly nonmelanoma cancer” (positive frame) versus “If a cancerous growth is detected, 1 out of 20 growths will be the more deadly melanoma cancer” (negative frame). Alternatively, information can be framed such that different behaviours are described as having the same consequences. This type of framing is most commonly used in studies of actual (rather than hypothetical) health behaviour decisions. Same consequences framing requires that the positive and negative frames depict the same consequences in terms of either performing or not performing a behaviour (Rothman et al., 1993). For example: “if you have a skin cancer examination, a cancerous growth can be detected before it becomes life threatening” (positive frame) versus “if you do not have a skin cancer examination, a cancerous growth cannot be detected before it becomes life threatening” (negative frame). The majority of framing studies in the health behaviour area use ‘same consequences’ framing (i.e., the benefits gained, or losses avoided, from performing the behaviour versus the benefits lost, or losses incurred, by not performing the behaviour). This framing lends itself to voluntary health behaviours, such as cancer screening, and thus is the modus operandi for research on communications to increase the prevalence of breast self-examination (BSE), testicular self-examination (TSE), and similar behaviours. Same consequences framing presents dichotomous outcomes “if you do (don’t do) X; Y will (won’t) happen.” This is operationally very different, however, to the original Kahneman and Tversky studies (Kahneman and Tversky, 1979; Tversky and Kahneman, 1981), which were based on a decision between two behaviours rather than a decision to do or not do a single behaviour. A number of authors have debated the value of a four-cell framing model (Brendl, Higgins and Lemm, 1995; Higgins et al.,1994; Higgins and Tykocinski, 1992; Rothman and Salovey, 1997) where the two dimensions are attain versus not attain; and desirable versus undesirable. Using this approach, the outcome of a specified behaviour could be to: a) obtain a desirable outcome; b) not obtain an undesirable outcome; c) obtain an undesirable outcome; or d) not obtain a desirable outcome. Within this framework, both (a) and (b) are outcomes of engaging in the behaviour -where the behaviour is a positive one and are defined as ‘gain-framed messages,’ or positive framing. An example of this would be “if you exercise regularly you will stay fit” (obtain desirable) and “if you exercise regularly you won’t become unfit” (not obtain undesirable). Both (b) and (c) are outcomes of not engaging in the behaviour (again, where the behaviour is a positive one) and are defined as ‘loss-framed messages,’ or negative framing. An example of this would be “if you don’t exercise regularly you won’t stay fit” (not obtain desirable) and “if you don’t exercise regularly you will become unfit” (obtain undesirable). This framework can also be used in relation to a ‘negative’ behaviour, such as smoking, as follows: a) If you don’t smoke you will have healthy lungs (obtain desirable); b) If you don’t smoke you won’t damage your lungs (not obtain undesirable); c) If you smoke you will damage your lungs (obtain undesirable); and d) If you smoke you won’t have healthy lungs (not obtain desirable). There is currently a debate about whether each of the four frames has a different persuasive impact (Higgins et al., 1994) or whether there is simply a gain versus loss main effect (Petty and Wegener, 1991) – that is (a) and (b) versus (c) and (d). This study compared the effectiveness of the four persuasive communication approaches. Given the recommendation of adopting a health-enhancing behaviour (where ‘do’ refers to adopting the behaviour and ‘don’t’ refers to not adopting the behaviour), and the type of consequences (positive or negative), the four communication approaches can be categorised as: 1) do and obtain the desirable consequences; 2) do and avoid the undesirable consequences; 3) don’t do and incur the undesirable consequences; and 4) don’t do and miss out on the desirable consequences.