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Fear Appeal Definitions

Below I compiled all of my sources and made a list of quotes defining the purposes and uses for 'Fear Appeal'. My intentions are to list out all of my findings and compile them into my narrative for the first segment

Fear Appeal Definitions:

1-“Fear Appeal persuades people to feel that they are assuming a risk if they do or do not purchase a certain product. The idea is that if consumers don’t use the product you are advertising, you make them feel like there may be undesirable consequences as a result.”(Newbold, 2017)

2-“They found fear appeals to be effective, especially when they contained recommendations for one-time only (versus repeated) behaviors and if the targeted audience included a larger percentage of women. They also confirmed prior findings that fear appeals are effective when they describe how to avoid the threat (e.g., get the vaccine, use a condom).”

(Tannenbaul et al., 2015)

3-"According to fear appeal theories, a fear appeal is defined as a message that presents threat information to cause fear, focusing on the severity and probability of occurrence of a threat to promote safer behavior “

(Wu et al., 2021)

4-“Fear appeals are persuasive messages that attempt to arouse fear by emphasizing the potential danger and harm that will befall individuals if they do not adopt the messages’ recommendations (Dillard et al., 1996; Maddux & Rogers, 1983). Although these messages are often used in political, public health, and advertising campaigns in the hopes of reducing risky attitudes, intentions, or behaviors, their use is often a polarizing issue.”(Tannenbaul et al., 2015)

5-

-X is something to fear; therefore Y should be implemented to prevent X.

-X (death) is something to fear; therefore Y (stopping smoking) should be implemented to prevent X.

-X (Autism) is something to fear; therefore Y (not vaccinating children) should be implemented to prevent X. 

 (Simpson, 2017)

Sources

Newbold, C. (2017, September 14). THE FEAR APPEAL (ADVERTISING). The Visual Communication Guy. Retrieved July 11, 2022, from https://thevisualcommunicationguy.com/2017/09/14/the-fear-appeal-advertising/

Tannenbaul, M. B., Hepler, J., Zimmerman, R. S., Saul, L., Jacobs, S., Wilson, K., & Albarracin, D. (2015). Appealing to Fear: A Meta-Analysis of Fear Appeal Effectiveness and Theories. Psychological Bulletin, 141(6), 1178–1204. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0039729

Wu, G., Deng, X. & Liu, B. Using fear appeal theories to understand the effects of location information of patients on citizens during the COVID-19 pandemic. Curr Psychol (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-021-01953-8

 Simpson, J. K. (2017). Appeal to fear in health care: appropriate or inappropriate? Chiropractic & Manual Therapies, 25(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12998-017-0157-8

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