Vicarious and persuasive influences on efficacy expectations and intentions to perform breast self-examination

How Should public health campaign messages be designed to reach young women about the importance of practicing breast self-examination throughout thei r lives! To answer this question, an experiment was conducted by testing th e impact of symbolic modeling and persuasive efficacy information on self-e fficacy beliefs and intentions to perform breast self-examination. The effe cts of these modes of efficacy induction on fear arousal and response-outco me expectations also were assessed. Overall, symbolic modeling engendered g reater efficacy expectations and behavioral intentions than did persuasive efficacy information, which in turn exceeded the control condition. Hypothe sized differences among conditions on fear arousal and response-outcome exp ectations were not obtained. Theoretical implications for designing and pre testing breast self-examination messages during the planning and programmin g phase of the public relations campaign-management process are discussed. Ron Anderson is associate professor of advertising and faculty coordinator of the Program in Public Relations at the University of Texas at Austin.