Title of Thesis: THE FOLLOWING MESSAGE MIGHT MAKE YOU MAD: FOREWARNING AND INOCULATION AGAINST REACTANCE Yoav Magid, Master of Arts, 2011 Thesis Directed by: Professor Monique Mitchell Turner Department of Communication If a persuasive attempt, be it a commercial advertisement, a Public Service Announcement, or a major public health campaign, threatens individuals’ perceived freedom to make the...

This paper examines the impact that psychological reactance has on COVID-19 adherence-related behavior and vaccine motivations of residents Saudi Arabia. A cross-sectional, online survey was administered, 604 usable responses were analyzed to discover level reactance, its adherence preventive measures intentions. Results Kruskal–Wallis H test demonstrated statistically significant evidence (p &...

Negotiating romantic relational dynamics is inherent to family caregiving situations, which continue be on the rise in United States. However, despite evidence that duties are linked a variety of negative outcomes, limited research examines communication processes contribute or alleviate burden caregiver relationships. Guided by psychological reactance theory (PRT), this study examined link bet...

“You must stay at home!” This is how the UK Prime Minister announced lockdown in March 2020. Many countries implemented similarly assertive messages. Research, however, suggests that authoritative language can backfire by inciting psychological reactance (i.e., feelings of anger arising from threats to one’s autonomy). In a series three studies, we therefore tested whether commanding versus con...

Recent studies suggest climate change consensus messages may cause psychological reactance for conservatives. However, it remains unknown how much this impacts the effectiveness of messaging. Using data from a recent meta-analysis on interventions, current paper seeks to add context debate over reactance. We integrated 20 experiments (N = 19,200 participants) that test (compared control conditi...