Young People’s Response to
Intended ‘Shocking’ Road Safety
Messages (Traffic Safety Education Workshop 2007)
Fear Appeals
 A popular form of health message is the fear appeal
– to scare people into change
 Fear appeals can be effective – only if:
 properly designed
 do more than just frighten
 Fear is multidimensional
 Pushing somebody to change their behaviour when
they are not ready, invariably leads to resistance
Fear Appeals
 Fear appeals create an impression of message
effectiveness
 Unfortunately audience judgments of perceived
effectiveness of an advertisement has been shown
NOT to be a reliable predictor of behaviour
 To be effective, media campaign should be integrated
with supportive activities
 TAC Media Campaigns provides public education
support to enforcement activities, legislative change
and raises community awareness
The Deficit Model
Young People
 Pre-existing beliefs, attitudes and prior behaviour acts
as a screen for messages from the media and society
 Prior knowledge and experiences determine the extent
to which threat communications are
accepted/discounted and subsequent strategies they
engage in
 Young people are in a critical stage of development –
when they shift their key point of reference from family
to peer group
Young People
 Young people more likely to assess risks for
opportunity for gains, compared to adults who tend to
focus on opportunity for loss
 Opportunity for gain – include peer approval, selfimage, self-esteem
 Need to understand
 What belief do young people hold?
 Who are their relevant referents?
 What are the barriers to desired behaviour change?
Shock Tactics and Fear
 Shock tactics are designed to lead to fear response and
subsequent behaviour change
 Shock tactics can evoke a range of affective responses
including fear, anger, puzzlement, guilt, shame
 It cannot be assumed that a threat appeal will evoke
a fear response
 Fear is multidimensional and complex
 Inhibitory Fear – where the audience makes an effort
to reduce the anxiety caused by the stimulus
 Anticipatory Fear – related to the perceived likelihood
of experience the threat, where the aim is the deal
with the threat rather than avoid the anxiety
Shock Tactics
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Fear can evoke a range of cognitive responses:
Third Person Effect
Optimistic Bias
Maladaptive Coping Responses
 Fatalism
 Avoidance
 Religious faith reliance
 Inaccurate information beliefs
 Denial
Protection Motivation Theory – Rogers (1983)
 People motivated to take action to protect
themselves from a health threat, according to:
 Severity - Perceived severity of threat
 Vulnerability - Perceived probability of its
occurrence
 Response Efficacy - Perceived efficacy of
advocated response
 Self Efficacy - Perceived self-efficacy to perform
the response
Shock tactics – what works
Vulnerability – predictive of intention and behaviour
Response Efficacy – predictive of intention
Tay & Watson 2002:
1. Low/Moderate Fear & High Response Efficacy
2. High Fear & High Response Efficacy
3. High Fear & Low Response Efficacy
Communication Features of Shock Tactics
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Frames – Tversky and Kahneman
Emotional Interest
Concreteness
Proximity
Delivery and wording appropriate to the target group
Shock Tactics and Young People
 The health message must penetrate several
levels of passive and active defenses
 Threat based advertising while relevant and
influential for some segments, may not be
relevant and influential for the entire audience
 Fear more effective with adults and with children
or young people
 Fear arousing messages more effective for the
converted
Why Shock Tactics fail
 Fail to increase perception of vulnerability
 Fail to promote high response efficacy – instead
maladaptive actions occur
 As fear appeals increase in strength, so do
defensive responses
Shock Tactics – HIV / AIDS
The Grim Reaper Campaign
Why not Grim Reaper II ?
 Given the 2 distinct (heterogeneous) target groups –
focus on the toxic side effects of antiviral treatments
 To increase sense of vulnerability:
1. Risk of HIV transmission
2. HIV Transmission
3. Disease Progression
4. Increased viral load – antiviral therapy recommended
5. Antivirals associated with lipodystrophy/lipoatrophy prescribed
6. Lipodystrophy/lipoatrophy develops
Why not Grim Reaper II ?
 Confuses the debate about HIV transmission
 Significant possibility of detrimental effects
 Reduce QoL for people living with HIV
 HIV positive individuals deferring, rejecting or poorly
adhering to antiviral therapy
 Increased disease progression among HIV positive
 Increased communal viral pool
 Increases in HIV transmission
Shock Tactics – Smoking Cessation
QUIT Campaign 1998
 Quit Victoria has conducted graphic smoking
cessation campaigns for many years
 Negative health effects of smoking well known and
undisputable
 Tools
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Taxes on cigarettes
Regulations at point of sale
Advertising ban on cigarette promotion
Quit programs, Quitline,
pharmacological quitting aids
Anti-smoking mass media campaigns
Shock Tactics – Smoking Cessation
QUIT Campaign 1998
Shock Tactics – Smoking Cessation
QUIT Campaign 1998
Effective Shock Tactic Campaigns
 NOT stand alone media campaigns!
 Effective Shock Tactic Campaigns integrated into
evidence-based behavioural programs in the community.
 Drive Drive – Random breath testing, increase
penalties and enforcement
 Grim Reaper – Safe Sex Education, Free Needle
Exchange programs
 QUIT – Quitline, Quit programs in workplaces,
advertising bans at point of sale, smoking restrictions
 Stand-alone/One-off events or campaigns – do not
work.
Things to Remember When Working with
Young People
Whilst fear appeals may have a motivational role,
prevention programs are more like to be effective if they
focus on:
 Building Decision Making Skills
 General Coping Skills
 Assertive Skills / Resist Peer Pressure
 Self-Esteem/Self-efficacy
 Encourage Conversations/Discussions
 Similar Communicator & Credible
Things to Remember When Working with
Young People
 Provides New Facts
 Disablement Rather Than Death / Short Term and
Social (Peer) Effects
 Personal Relevance
 Avoid A Paternalistic Approach
 Avoid A Didactic Approach
 Avoid Single, One-off “Events”
 Low-Moderate Fear & High Response Efficacy