So many times health promotion campaigns are designed to elicit fear, yet the use of fear is often ineffective in achieving the desired behavior change. What does work?? As I have been told fear appeal does not work in getting people to change their behavior and yet we see it all the time. This is what I found and learned: fear is most likely to be effective if the campaign allows for the desired behavior to be reinforced by a reduction in the level of fear. This entails five requirements: 1) fear onset should occur before the desired behavior is offered; 2) the event upon which the fear is based should appear to be likely; 3) a specific desired behavior should be offered as part of the campaign; 4) the level of fear elicited should only be such that the desired behavior offered is sufficient to substantially reduce the fear; 5) fear offset should occur as a reinforcer for the desired behavior, confirming its effectiveness. After having read this, I can help but to think who actually does this? Keep all these points in mind is difficult if not next to impossible. Check this link out, here is what I am talking about:
This is cool too
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1349109
