Framing Health Education Messages

Most health education interventions use a comprehensive approach. Consequently, the question regarding the components that cause a message to be effective cannot be addressed in such an approach. This project aims at testing why health education messages are effective using Prospect Theory that states that gain or loss framed messages will result in different outcomes, depending on the characteristic of the behavior and the target group. We will focus on the characteristics of the target group by testing in the first two studies the impact of gain or loss framed messages in persons motivated or not motivated to change. The hypothesis is that loss framed messages will be more effective under situations of risk and thus will be more effective to change people not motivated to change; gain framed messages will be more effective under situations of low risk and will be more effective for persons motivated to change. The additional impact of self-efficacy enhancing information will be tested as well. In the second study we will additionally test the mediating impact of misclassification of behaviour. In a third study we will test whether the induction of fear preceded by loss or gain frames will result in different effects than when framing information is followed by fear induction.