THE MULTIPLE AFFECTIVE OUTCOMES OF AIDS PSAS - FEAR APPEALS DO MORE THAN SCARE PEOPLE

The widespread we of fear appeals in health communication campaigns se ems to reflect the existence of a folk theory that predicts message ac ceptance as a function of induced fright. Whereas there is empirical e vidence consistent with that position, recent research also shows that other affects may influence message acceptance as well. Two studies w ere conducted to determine the extent to which a sample of public serv ice announcements (PSAs) on the topic of AIDS/HIV evoked affective res ponses, the degree to which those affects predicted message acceptance , and the mechanism by which feelings, including fear, operate on mess age acceptance. Results showed that a variety of affects were induced by the PSAs, most of which did predict message acceptance. However con siderable variation was observed in both sign and magnitude of the ass ociations. As for mechanism, the data suggested that the effects of af fect on message acceptance were mediated by heuristic rather than syst ematic message processing.