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Health Communication Feb 2020Target audience ratings of the likely impact of persuasive messages, known as perceived message effectiveness (PME), are commonly used in health communication campaigns.... (Meta-Analysis)
Meta-Analysis
Target audience ratings of the likely impact of persuasive messages, known as perceived message effectiveness (PME), are commonly used in health communication campaigns. However, applications of PME rely on a critical assumption-that is, that PME is a valid indicator of the likely effectiveness of messages. To examine the evidence supporting this assumption, we conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of longitudinal studies in the tobacco education campaigns literature. Six longitudinal studies examining the predictive validity of PME met inclusion criteria. Results indicated that PME ratings were significantly associated with the majority of outcomes studied. In fact, each of the six studies found PME to be associated with at least one outcome, and across the six studies, PME was associated with message recall, conversations about ads, beliefs about smoking and quitting smoking, quit intentions, and cessation behavior. Meta-analyses demonstrated that PME predicted quit intentions ( = .256, < .001) and cessation behavior ( = .201, < .001), revealing effects that were small to medium in magnitude. Our results suggest that PME provides some predictive value as to the likely effectiveness of messages, although additional work using different validation designs, with other health behaviors, and among other populations is needed.
Topics: Health Education; Health Promotion; Humans; Intention; Longitudinal Studies; Persuasive Communication; Smoking Cessation; Tobacco Use
PubMed: 30482058
DOI: 10.1080/10410236.2018.1547675 -
Frontiers in Psychology 2021Persuaders face many message design choices: narrative or non-narrative format, gain-framed or loss-framed appeals, one-sided or two-sided messages, and so on. But a...
Persuaders face many message design choices: narrative or non-narrative format, gain-framed or loss-framed appeals, one-sided or two-sided messages, and so on. But a review of 1,149 studies of 30 such message variations reveals that, although there are statistically significant differences in persuasiveness between message forms, it doesn't make much difference to persuasiveness which option is chosen (as evidenced by small mean effect sizes, that is, small differences in persuasiveness: median mean s of about 0.10); moreover, choosing the on-average-more-effective option does not consistently confer a persuasive advantage (as evidenced by 95% prediction intervals that include both positive and negative values). Strikingly, these results obtain even when multiple moderating conditions are specified. Implications for persuasive message research and practice are discussed.
PubMed: 34267703
DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.664160