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Subject:
From:
Jodine Chase <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Lactation Information and Discussion <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Tue, 1 Mar 2005 08:04:40 -0700
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On 3/1/05 5:49 AM, "Teresa Pitman" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> A colleague of mine attended a workshop on health promotion a couple of
> years ago which was on the topic of fear and guilt in health promotion. She
> said they presented research showing that anything that "promoted guilt" or
> "created fear" about negative consequences was less effective in changing
> people's behaviours. For this reason, she was not willing to use statements
> about "the risks of not breastfeeding" or those that discussed breastfeeding
> as normal and formula as "less than normal." This was not at all because she
> didn't want to support breastfeeding, but because she felt, based on this
> workshop, that it was more effective to talk about the benefits of
> breastfeeding (like we might talk about the benefits of exercise or good
> nutrition).
> 
> She no longer works with me, but I am curious to know if anyone else has
> heard of similar research and if they know how valid or reliable it is.


This debate about the effectiveness of fear tactics is not new. Back in the
mid-eighties I was involved with the first efforts in our province to reduce
HIV transmission. The briefing documents given to ad agencies who were to
present creative concepts for a campaign included some research about the
use of fear tactics in advertising as being not effective. Public
health/health communications professionals involved in campaign preparation
were advocating a move away from fear tactics.

One agency came up with countering research that showed that fear tactics
can be a very effective tool to raise awareness but that the best result for
changing behaviours was when they were coupled with either
information/education or enforcement. The importance of the fear messaging
was underlined in that it was needed to get people to realize they were
personally affected. But the fear messaging itself wasn't the only factor in
behaviour change. What was needed was follow-up with detailed information
and/or education and/or enforcement (ie, through legislation). This agency
contended that fear messaging was an effective way to achieve first step in
effecting behaviour change - creating awareness of the problem.

I'm sorry, I can't come up with citations, but I remember well the research
presented by this particular agency - some of it came from Australia, and
some of it related to infant car-seat compliance.

You might want to look at the work of Kim Witte at U Michigan:

http://www.msu.edu/~wittek/

-- Jodine Chase

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