Collective Identity: Making the Case for a Stage Model Approach to Addressing Water Quality in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed.

The Chesapeake Bay watershed encompasses six states and the District of Columbia. Consequently, the people within it display great diversity in terms of values, allegiances, and experiences. That diversity may help to explain an apparent inability to coordinate actions aimed at redressing the dismal water quality throughout the watershed.

A Content Analysis of Online Messages about Sugar-Sweetened Beverages.

Media campaigns can reduce or promote the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs). Brief, US-based English-language online messages were gathered from searchable media platforms, a process that yielded 112 anti-SSB videos and 29 pro-SSB commercials. Using a combination of inductive and deductive methods, a content analysis of those messages was conducted to identify their properties.

Spillover effects of anti-sugar-sweetened beverage messages: From consumption decisions to policy preferences.

Background: Intake of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) is associated with many negative health outcomes. Efforts to curb consumption generally take one of two approaches: (a) Individual change based on the communication of personal risk information or (b) policies that limit or disincentivize the behavior, such as restricting access or implementing taxes.

Methods And Results: Using samples of 2347 persons and 139 pro- and anti-SSB messages, this study tested whether individual-level persuasion attempts would spill over to voting intentions and whether that spillover would amplify or attenuate policy preferences.

Media Contributions to a Chesapeake Bay Watershed Collective Identity? A Tale of Three Cities.

Although collective action is needed to address many environmental challenges, it cannot proceed in the absence of collective identity, that is, evidence of group belongingness expressed in or via communicative behavior. This study looked for evidence of a collective identity in newspaper articles that referenced the Chesapeake Bay Watershed. The data were drawn from local papers published in municipalities located at the headwaters of the Susquehanna River, midway down the Susquehanna, and where the river meets the Bay.

Persuasive Messages, Social Norms, and Reactance: A Study of Masking Behavior during a COVID-19 Campus Health Campaign.

Efforts by universities to reduce the spread of COVID-19 include health campaigns intended to encourage students to wear masks. While well-intended, these efforts may produce counter-persuasion (e.g.

Talking about Sugar-Sweetened Beverages: Causes, Processes, and Consequences of Campaign-Induced Interpersonal Communication.

Media campaigns may influence audience members directly, via message exposure, or indirectly, via conversations about the campaign. Either process has the potential to produce persuasion or counter-persuasion (i.e.

Fear of Zika: Information Seeking as Cause and Consequence.

This study examined the relationship between information seeking and fear during the Zika-induced global health crisis. A longitudinal survey of women in the Southern U.S.

Communicating Antibiotic Stewardship: Emotional Responses and Their Impact on Adherence.

Although watchful watching has been recommended as a means of reducing unnecessary use of antibiotics, nonadherence has frequently been observed. Drawing from appraisal theories of emotion, this study ( = 579) examined (a) the factors that shape pediatric caregivers' emotional experiences in the medical contexts and (b) the influence of emotions on (non)adherence behavioral intentions. Caregivers reported more intense negative emotions and less intense positive emotions following watchful waiting advice versus receiving an antibiotic prescription.

Anti-Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Messages Elicit Reactance: Effects on Attitudes and Policy Preferences.

Messages that convey the dangers associated with consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) may be the most effective means of changing attitudes toward consumption and policy preferences. However, there is a risk that this message type also stimulates reactance, a form of resistance to persuasion. A study (N = 618) using messages from the 2012 New York City anti-SSB campaign and a sample of New York City residents showed just such effects.

Self-regulation of emotional responses to Zika: Spiral of fear.

Fear of infectious disease can create a variety of problems not the least of which is fear itself. An important question is how individuals attempt to manage their fear. The appearance of Zika in the U.

Understanding Fear of Zika: Personal, Interpersonal, and Media Influences.

Fear of infectious disease often motivates people to protect themselves. But, it can also produce negative bio-social-psychological effects whose severity is on par with those of the disease. The WHO declaration of Zika as a world health crisis presented an opportunity to study factors that bring about fear.

Threat Appeals: The Fear-Persuasion Relationship is Linear and Curvilinear.

Drive theory may be seen as the first scientific theory of health and risk communication. However, its prediction of a curvilinear association between fear and persuasion is generally held to be incorrect. A close rereading of Hovland et al.

Interpreting Perceived Effectiveness: Understanding and Addressing the Problem of Mean Validity.

Research has shown that perceived message effectiveness (PE) correlates reasonably well with indices of actual effectiveness, but little attention has been given to how to interpret mean PE. This article describes the problem of mean validity and presents a research design that can be used to address it. Participants (N = 195) viewed messages that advocated being screened for colorectal cancer.

ICU family communication and health care professionals: A qualitative analysis of perspectives.

Objectives: Although ineffective communication is known to influence patient and family satisfaction with care in intensive care unit [ICU] settings, there has been little systematic analysis of the features of the perceived problem from a communication theory perspective. This study was undertaken to understand perceptions of miscommunication and the circumstances in which they present.

Research Methodology And Design: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 22 health care professionals [HCPs] in five adult ICUs at an academic medical centre in the United States.

Factors associated with participation in a prevention trial aimed at reducing biomarkers of breast cancer risk.

Objectives: Poor enrollment into prevention trials is a major obstacle to the conduct of clinical investigations. This study focuses on cognitive and affective influences on the decision to participate in a clinical trial aimed at reducing biomarkers of breast cancer risk.

Methods: Following a decision to participate or not in a clinical trial focused on reduction of breast cancer risk, women were recruited into the present study.

Impulsivity partially mediates the relationship between BIS/BAS and risky health behaviors.

Several theorists have suggested that impulsivity can be understood as a joint function of the behavioral approach (BAS) and behavioral inhibition systems (BIS). After resolving questions concerning the measurement of impulsivity and BAS, this study examined the relationships among risky health behaviors, impulsivity, BIS, and BAS. Utilizing a sample of undergraduates (N = 904), a structural model was tested in which BAS and BIS predicted impulsivity, which, in turn, predicted risky behavior.

An application of the integrative model to women's intention to be vaccinated against HPV: implications for message design.

Human papillomavirus (HPV) is the only definitively identified causal agent of cervical cancer. Given the availability of a vaccine that is effective against the two strains of HPV most commonly associated with cervical cancer, understanding the factors that influence women's decision to be vaccinated is crucial to uptake. Fishbein's (2000 ) integrative model of behavior provided theoretical guidance for a Web-based survey of college women (n=174).

Knowledge of human papillomavirus and perceived barriers to vaccination in a sample of US female college students.

Objective: to assess knowledge of human papillomavirus (HPV) and perceived barriers to being vaccinated against the virus.

Participants: three hundred ninety-six undergraduate women enrolled at Penn State University in Fall 2008.

Methods: a random sample of students were invited to participate in a Web-based survey.

Parental information seeking following a positive newborn screening for cystic fibrosis.

This investigation focused on the information-seeking behaviors of parents (N = 38) whose newborn had received a positive screening result for cystic fibrosis. Roughly half of the participants actively sought information about their child's potential disease prior to the clinic visit. The most common sources of information were the Internet, pediatricians, and family physicians.

Message frames interact with motivational systems to determine depth of message processing.

Although several theoretical perspectives predict that negatively framed messages will be processed more deeply than positively framed messages, a recent meta-analysis found no such difference. In this article, the authors explore 2 explanations for this inconsistency. One possibility is methodological: the statistics used in the primary studies underestimated framing effects on depth of message processing because the data were maldistributed.

Potential threats to the effective communication of genetic risk information: the case of cystic fibrosis.

The dramatic increase in genetic knowledge engendered by the mapping of the human genome brings with it a need for greater understanding of how to effectively communicate genetic risk information. Using a combination of observational and self-report data, this study examined potential threats to effective risk communication in 17 families whose infant received a positive newborn screening test for cystic fibrosis. Five specific problems are identified: (a) copresence of interactants (or the lack thereof), (b) disruptions in the communication environment, (c) variations in parents' initial knowledge, (d) rigidity in counselors' behavioral scripts, and (e) emotional interference with information acquisition.

The perceived effectiveness of persuasive messages: questions of structure, referent, and bias.

To gain a sense of the persuasive efficacy of a message prior to implementation of a campaign, researchers often gather judgments of perceived effectiveness (PE). At present, they do so without much knowledge of the conceptual meaning or empirical properties of PE. In the spirit of construct explication, we report a study intended to address a series of questions about PE.

The effect of disruptions during counseling on recall of genetic risk information: the case of cystic fibrosis.

Genetic counseling is a communication process with two main functions: information provision and supportive counseling. The information transmission function may be compromised by disruptions that occur during counseling. At least two mediators are possible: (a) disruptions may interfere with memory by creating distractions and divided attention during encoding or (b) disruptions may degrade the flow of interaction which requires that participants engage in conversation repair rather than the task at hand.

Information flow after a positive newborn screening for cystic fibrosis.

Objectives: To provide a model of the information processes instigated by a positive result on a newborn screening for cystic fibrosis and to analyze their implications for future research.

Method: We reviewed research conducted at Wisconsin and elsewhere.

Results: We identified 6 distinct phases of information flow.

Psychometric properties of the Hong psychological reactance scale.

The Hong Psychological Reactance Scale (HPRS; Hong & Felda, 1996) was developed to measure the individual difference in reactance proneness, that is, a person's trait propensity to experience psychological reactance. We performed confirmatory factor analyses to test the dimensionality of the 11-item version of the HPRS. Three message outcome variables (i.