Attitudes, Beliefs,

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Attitudes, Beliefs, Motivation in Warning
Effectiveness
Chapters 9 10 by David DeJoy in Warnings and
Risk Communication, 1999

• Amy Battles
• November 28, 2006

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Agenda

• How Attitudes, Beliefs Motivation interact
• Value-Expectancy Theory
• Fear Arousal
• Influencing Factors in Warning Effectiveness
• Conclusions

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Attitudes, Beliefs, Motivation

• Communication-Human Information Processing
  (C-HIP) model warning effectiveness is
  determined by success at each stage of the model

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Reciprocal Relationship

• Attitudes beliefs set expectations determine
  how a person will approach and react to a hazard
• Effective warnings can motivate people by
  influencing attitudes and beliefs
• Many of the same factors that define
  expectations, also define effective motivation

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Value-Expectancy Theory

• Assumes people use a cost-benefit analysis when
  approaching a hazardous situation
• Seriousness of risk Costs/Benefits of various
  actions ? Decision on course of action
• Most research fits and follows this theory
• To motivate people, need to increase perceived
  seriousness, and/or improve costs/benefits

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Motivation - Fear Arousal

• Most warnings attempt to motivate with fear.
• Fear-drive theory people follow recommendations
  because doing so reduces the tension created by
  the fear of the message
• Cognitive model separate emotion (fear) from
  cognitive (evaluating risks consequences)
  reactions to warnings
• Leventhal (1970) parallel processes fear
  control (internal cues) danger control
  (external cues)
• Sutton (1982) Subjective-Expected Utility (SEU)
  theory
• Rogers (1983) Protection motivation theory
• Fear arousal is not always effective in changing
  behaviors attitudes
• Effects are short-lived
• Fear response tends to be automatic
• Society is saturated with fear-based messages

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Fear Arousal Behavior Change

• Original theory The more the merrier (a.k.a.
  bloody fingers)
• Curvilinear relationship supported by several
  studies
• Janis Feshbach (1953) - Too much fear can bring
  upon defense mechanisms
• McGuire (1980) communication- persuasion model
  increasing threat enhances some responses, but
  decrease others
• Range effects make it difficult to determine the
  most accurate model

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Stage Model

• At each stage of the process, warnings influence
  expectations, and expectations influence approach
  to warnings
• Many factors and points in process that influence
  behavior

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Categories of Influencing Factors

• Threat-Related persons assessment of the
  seriousness of the potential hazard
• Outcome-Related persons assessment of the
  effectiveness of the recommended precautions, and
  the costs associated with performing them
• Receiver Characteristics attributes of the
  person that facilitate or hinder self-protective
  behavior
• Persuasion Heuristics rules of thumb used to
  simplify complex processing

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1. Threat-Related

• Perceived hazardous increase likelihood to look
  for, read, and follow warnings
• Perceived Hazardousness Likelihood x Severity
• Severity more important dimension in (relatively
  safe) consumer products
• Likelihood becomes the primary dimension when
  severity reaches a high level (i.e. deadly)

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Motivation by Increasing Perceived Hazardousness

• Studies have shown the following elements of a
  warning will increase perceived hazardous, thus
  warning effectiveness
• Presence of a warning
• Signal word (i.e. Caution) more explicit is
  better e.g. Lethal)
• Red yellow colors
• Pointed shapes triangles diamonds
• Explicit concrete information about
  consequences of not complying (Note, however,
  sometimes concreteness vividness decreases
  effectives)
• Locate warnings in directions for use or such
  that they block use
• Longer more detailed warnings

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2. Outcome-Related

• Persons perceptions of
• Effectiveness of recommended precaution
• Costs or barriers associated with performing such
  behavior
• 3 facets
• Cost of Compliance
• Perceived Effectiveness
• Self- Efficacy

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Cost of Compliance

• If precaution requires significant time, effort
  or discomfort, or is simply less fun, compliance
  will go down.
• Compliance has been shown to be very high when
  costs are low.
• Example (Wogalter et. Al, 1987) broken door on
  college campus
• 94 compliance when alternate door was 10 feet
  away
• 0 compliance when alternate door was 60 feet
  away

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Perceived Effectiveness

• Expected benefits
• Likelihood/Severity of injury with no change in
  behavior -
• Likelihood/Severity of injury with
  self-protective action
• Perceived benefits increase when perceived
  hazardousness goes up OR perceived effectiveness
  goes up

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Motivation by Improving Perceived Effectiveness

• Guidelines for warnings recommend the following
  elements
• Signal word
• Hazard statement (nature of threat)
• Consequence statement regarding what will happen
  if warning ignored
• Instructions with action to reduce or eliminate
  the threat
• Removal of any one of these reduces perceived
  effectiveness
• Level of perceived threat must match perceived
  effectiveness, or else people may not respond

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Self-Efficacy

• Self-Efficacy expectations about ones ability
  to perform a specific protective behavior
• If you dont think you can perform the
  recommended action, then you are probably less
  likely to respond
• Likely to be a more significant factor in cases
  where recommended behavior is complex or requires
  a specific skill
• Step-by-step instructions could help improve
  self-efficacy (Amys opinion)

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3. Receiver Characteristics

• Any relative aspect or attribute of the person to
  whom the warning is directed can impact how the
  warning is perceived
• Categories
• Familiarity Experience
• Personal Relevance
• Demographic factors
• Personality
• Other

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Familiarity Experience

• Individuals personal knowledge of and/or
  experience with the product or activity increases
  awareness of warnings, but decreases perceived
  hazardousness likeliness of reading and
  complying with warnings
• Possible Causes
• Benign experience the more someone uses
  something without a problem, the less they worry
  about it
• Script theory people build scripts in memory
  with repeated use and behavior becomes automatic
• Habituation warnings fade into the background
  and people become accustomed to seeing them
• Experienced users less likely to attend to
  warnings when they switch products

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Personal Relevance

• People will not be motivated to comply with
  warnings they do not consider to be personally
  relevant
• Awareness people may not look for warnings if
  they are not aware of a hazard.
• Personalized warnings or warnings included in
  directions for use can increase personal
  relevance
• Personal Risk Assessment people may not think
  the hazard produces a risk to them personally
• Direct Experience personal experience with
  adverse events leads people to perceive the
  hazards as more frequent and to see themselves
  as more vulnerable

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Demographic Factors

• Gender perceived hazardousness warning
  compliance likely to be higher with females than
  males
• Age limited research shows some differences
  younger people perceive signal words as more
  hazardous, older people more likely to comply
  with warnings
• Personality Risk Taking some people more
  likely to seek new experiences thrills
  (possibly due to enjoying risk or trading off
  safety for other benefits), can vary by situation
• Important to consider motivations and target
  users when defining warnings ? Boomerang effect
  In some cases (e.g. anti-drug messages),
  warnings increased unsafe behavior

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Other Receiver Characteristics

• Competence
• Knowledge about subject
• Reading ability and language skills
• Implications for Motivation Simplifying
  information and/or using pictures does not
  necessarily improve compliance probably because
  they are more ambiguous

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4. Heuristics

• People often use heuristics (rules of thumb) when
  motivation or ability to engage in issue-related
  thinking is low
• Heuristic evaluation can lead to biases in risk
  perception
• Overconfidence Optimism
• People are able to give fairly accurate
  assessment of risks to society, but they do not
  think the risks apply to them.
• Availability
• People judge the likelihood of an event by how
  readily the event can be imagined or recalled ?
  they overestimate infrequent causes (homicides,
  fires, etc.) and underestimate frequent causes
  (asthma, diabetes, etc.)
• Suppression
• People tend to discount or ignore information
  that conflicts with an existing interpretation of
  a situation.

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Heuristic Considerations for Motivation

• Common heuristics (Eagly Chaciken, 1984)
• Rely on the perceived expertise of the source
• More easily persuaded by people they like
• Influenced by number of arguments presented
• Influenced by presence of statistics
• Social influence consensus cues
• Warning effectiveness can be increased by
  considering these (more research needed)

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Conclusions

• Expectation-Warnings relationship well understood
• Very hard to separate different influencing
  factors from each other
• Increasing motivation warning effectiveness is
  challenging
• More research is needed!!