Effects of Character Accent on Perceived Similarity, Transportation, and Narrative Persuasion.

Guided by narrative transportation theory and the social identity approach, this study examined the effects of character accent on perceived similarity, transportation, and narrative persuasion. Cigarette smokers from Kentucky ( = 492) listened to a first-person narrative about smoking-induced lung cancer. The character spoke either with a Southern American English (SAE; ingroup) or a General American English (GAE; outgroup) accent.

Promoting Oral Health in Appalachia: Effects of Threat Label and Source Accent on Message Acceptance.

This study examined the effects of threat label (i.e., the name assigned to a health threat) and source accent (i.

Vicious viruses and vigilant vaccines: effects of linguistic agency assignment in health policy advocacy.

Studying the effect of a fictitious policy editorial advocating mandatory vaccination of youth against human papillomavirus (HPV), the authors hypothesized that linguistic assignment of agency to HPV (e.g., "HPV preys on millions of people") would increase perceptions of its severity, relative to a comparable message that assigned agency to humans (e.

Bacteria as bullies: effects of linguistic agency assignment in health message.

When describing health threats, communicators can assign agency to the threat (e.g., "Hepatitis C has infected 4 million Americans") or to humans (e.

Physician communication regarding prostate cancer screening: analysis of unannounced standardized patient visits.

Purpose: Prostate cancer screening with prostate-specific antigen (PSA) is a controversial issue. The present study aimed to explore physician behaviors during an unannounced standardized patient encounter that was part of a randomized controlled trial to educate physicians using a prostate cancer screening, interactive, Web-based module.

Methods: Participants included 118 internal medicine and family medicine physicians from 5 health systems in California, in 2007-2008.