A self-regulatory framework for message framing

After several decades of research on message framing, there is still no clear and consistent answer to the question of when emphasizing positive or negative outcomes in a persuasive message will be most effective. Whereas early framing research considered the type of recommended behavior (health-affirming vs. illness-detection) to be the determining factor, more recent research has looked to individual differences to answer this question. In this paper, we incorporate both approaches under a single framework. The framework describes the multiple self-regulatory levels at which a message can be framed and predicts when framing at each level will be most effective. Two central predictions were confirmed across four studies: (1) messages describing the pleasures of adhering to the recommended behavior are most effective for recipients in a promotion focus (who are concerned with meeting growth needs), whereas messages describing the pains of not adhering are most effective for recipients in a prevention focus (who are concerned with meeting safety needs), and (2) the content of an advocacy message is essential, as different topics induce different regulatory orientations. By showing that different message content can induce a promotion or prevention focus, past findings and theories can be accommodated within the proposed framework, and a single set of self-regulatory principles can be used to understand message framing.     

Influencing health decision-making: A study of colour and message framing

Objective: Previous research has provided evidence that colour associations and frame can influence behavioural intentions to engage in vaccination behaviours. In this study, the extension of these effects to sunscreen application behaviours was investigated. Additional colours and the manner in which colour primes were employed were also explored.

Design: Two hundred and eighty-six college students were primed with either short wavelength colours (blue/purple) or long wavelength colours (red/orange) as part of goal framed sunscreen information pamphlets.

Main outcome measures: Self-reported behavioural intentions to apply sunscreen, immediate affective reaction to stimuli material, anticipated affect towards sunscreen use, and perceived efficacy of preventing skin cancer were measured.

Results: Individuals with no prior intention to use sunscreen expressed greater behavioural intentions to do so after reading a positively framed sunscreen pamphlet that was designed using short wavelength colours. The negatively framed messages and those presented in long wavelength colours did not enhance persuasion.

Conclusions: In accordance with the Unification Theory of Framing, a match between the representations of the target behaviour, the colour prime, and the frame resulted in the greatest amount of persuasion. Creating communications with representations that match the target behaviour could be a powerful tool to increase compliance.     

Dispositional motivations and message framing: a test of the congruency hypothesis in college students.

The authors examined the congruency hypothesis that health messages framed to be concordant with dispositional motivations will be most effective in promoting health behaviors. Undergraduate students (N=63) completed a measure of approach/avoidance orientation (behavioral activation/inhibition system) and read a gain- or loss-framed message promoting flossing. Results support the congruency hypothesis: When given a loss-framed message, avoidance-oriented people reported flossing more than approach-oriented people, and when given a gain-framed message, approach-oriented people reported flossing more than avoidance-oriented people. Discussion centers on implications for health interventions and the route by which dispositional motivations affect health behaviors through message framing.     

Regulatory focus and work-related outcomes: A review and meta-analysis

Regulatory focus theory (Higgins, 1997) has received growing attention in organizational psychology, necessitating a quantitative review that synthesizes its effects on important criteria. In addition, there is need for theoretical integration of regulatory focus theory with personality research. Theoretical integration is particularly relevant, since personality traits and dispositions are distal factors that are unlikely to have direct effects on work behaviors, yet they may have indirect effects via regulatory focus. The current meta-analysis introduces an integrative framework in which the effects of personality on work behaviors are best understood when considered in conjunction with more proximal motivational processes such as regulatory focus. Using a distal-proximal approach, we identify personality antecedents and work-related consequences of regulatory foci in a framework that considers both general and work-specific regulatory foci as proximal motivational processes. We present meta-analytic results for relations of regulatory focus with its antecedents (approach and avoid temperaments, conscientiousness, openness to experience, agreeableness, self-esteem, and self-efficacy) and its consequences (work behaviors and attitudes). In addition to estimates of bivariate relationships, we support a meta-analytic path model in which distal personality traits relate to work behaviors via the mediating effects of general and work-specific regulatory focus. Results from tests of incremental and relative validity indicated that regulatory foci predict unique variance in work behaviors after controlling for established personality, motivation, and attitudinal predictors. Consistent with regulatory focus theory and our integrative theoretical framework, regulatory focus has meaningful relations with work outcomes and is not redundant with other individual difference variables. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).     

Ambiguity seeking in multi-attribute decisions: Effects of optimism and message framing

This paper investigates the influence of message framing and personality variables on preferences over ambiguity in the context of multi-attribute decision scenarios. Undergraduate subjects responded to scenarios in which one of two medical treatments was associated with ambiguous probabilities of treatment effects. Probabilities were either positively or negatively framed. Subjects indicated their degree of preference for one treatment over the other. Subjects' optimism, trait anxiety, health locus of control, need for cognitive structure, and current mood were measured. In two separate studies, subjects preferred ambiguity when probabilities were positively framed, and were neutral toward ambiguity when probabilities were negatively framed. Also, in both studies the preference for ambiguity in positively framed scenarios was greater for more optimistic subjects. The unexpected finding of ambiguity seeking may be associated with the use of different decision strategies in multi-attribute versus single-attribute decisions.     

A naturalistic study of the impact of message framing on highway speeding

Speeding is the most common road violation, and is one of the main causes of crashes. To protect road users, authorities use sanctions and preventive measures to prompt drivers to observe speed limits. However, the efficacy of prevention messages varies according to a number of factors, among which risk framing is important. We ran a study to test whether gain is more effective than loss (framing effect). Four anti-speeding messages were presented on variable-message signs, along one side of a busy 8-lane highway in France (speed limit: 130 km/h – 80 mph), during 6 weekends. Within a between subject design, the messages differed in orientation (gain vs. loss vs. no message) and theme (crash vs. fuel consumption). The drivers’ speed was recorded on the highway 2 km (1.25 miles) after the sign (6486 recordings of speed). The results showed that speed was lower when a message was displayed than in the control condition, and when the message was gain-framed rather than loss-framed. These effects were stronger on the left lanes (overtaking lanes). Hence, gain framed messages are recommended for prevention campaigns at least when no risk factor is salient.     

Self-guide framing and persuasion: responsibly increasing message processing to ideal levels

The current research examines the effect that framing persuasive messages in terms of self-guides (ideal vs. ought) has on the attitudes and cognitive responses of individuals with chronic ideal versus ought self-guides. The strength of participants' ideal and ought self-guides and the magnitude of participants' ideal and ought self-discrepancies were measured using a computerized reaction time program. One week later, participants read a persuasive message about a fictional breakfast product, framed in terms of either ideals or oughts. Matching framing to stronger self-guide led to enhanced message processing activity, especially among individuals who were low in need for cognition. Individuals who read messages framed to match their stronger self-guides paid more attention to argument quality, as reflected in their attitudes and cognitive responses. Messages with self-guide framing that matched individuals' stronger self-discrepancies did not have this effect on processing.     

The effects of message framing on behavioral prevalence assumptions

Based on attribution theory and the logic of conversational norms, we predicted that image‐based health communications can alter prevalence estimates for health behaviors. In two studies, participants were exposed either to a positively‐framed or negatively‐framed communication advocating for specific health behaviors. As predicted, participants who read a health communication rated healthy behaviors as less common when positive attributes were associated with healthy choices than when negative attributes were associated with unhealthy choices. The second study revealed that this pattern was most pronounced among participants who reported initial uncertainty about behavioral norms. These findings suggest that positively‐framed influence attempts can promote prevalence assumptions that work against the influence attempt. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Fit for persuasion: the effects of nonverbal delivery style,message framing,and gender on message effectiveness

This study examined two experimental variables, delivery style and message framing, that have yet to be examined together in the regulatory fit literature. College students (mean age = 30) watched a video message encouraging regular exercise delivered in an eager or vigilant nonverbal style and framed in terms of gain or loss. Results revealed significant fit effects involving gender, delivery style, and message framing. The eager message was perceived as more effective by men whereas the vigilant message was perceived as more effective by women. A message framing by delivery style fit effect also emerged for perceived message effectiveness. The implications and limitations of these findings are discussed.     

Regulatory focus and affective recall

In two studies, we tested the impact of regulatory focus on recalled affect for past academic outcomes. Because promotion focus concerns achieving gains, it should be related to greater recalled positive affect. In contrast, prevention focus concerns avoiding losses, and should be related to greater recalled negative affect. In Study 1, promotion focus led to greater recalled positive affect for positive events, while prevention focus led to greater recalled negative affect regardless of event valence. In Study 2, promotion focus increased recalled positive affect for both positive and negative events, whereas prevention focus increased recalled negative affect for both positive and negative events. These studies demonstrate that current motivation can alter memory for past affective experiences; the regulatory focus ascribed to a previous event changes the extent to which people remember their emotional experience. Implications are discussed.     

Regulatory focus and temporal distance

Four studies identify and examine a temporal component to regulatory focus. Results support the assertion that promotion focus tends to predominate for temporally distant goals, whereas proximal goals are characterized by more balanced consideration of both promotion- and prevention-focused concerns. In Study 1, students rated the importance of promotion and prevention goals at two points in time: 2 weeks before and a few minutes before an examination. Promotion goal importance increased with temporal distance, whereas prevention goal importance remained constant over time. Study 2 replicated this pattern holding the actual time-span constant (3.5 weeks) and varying only the psychological sense of proximity/distance. In Study 3, subjects rated the regulatory focus of goals at varying points in time, both future and past. The temporal effect was replicated for both time periods. Study 4 provided evidence for the reverse effect, that of regulatory focus on the perceived temporal distance of future goals. Taken together, these findings suggest an integration across research domains that links regulatory focus to temporal perspective for both prospective and retrospective judgments.     

Regulatory focus theory: Disentangling goals and strategies

The purpose of this research was to develop and test the Regulatory Goals and Strategies Questionnaire (RGSQ) to promote conceptual and empirical clarity in the literature on regulatory focus theory (RFT). According to RFT, construing an end-state as a maximal goal (ideal, gain, and advancement) elicits the adoption of an eager promotion-focused strategy, whereas construing an end-state as a minimal goal (ought, non-loss, and security) elicits the adoption of a vigilant prevention-focused strategy. This means that promotion-focused eagerness and prevention-focused vigilance can be elicited by various goals and that eager and vigilant strategies are in fact separate from goals. However, extant measurement instruments have not treated them as such. The RGSQ was developed to distinguish various maximal and minimal goals and to separate these goals from promotion- and prevention-focused strategies of eagerness and vigilance. Across three studies that combine six samples (total N = 1848), we examined the factor structure and nomological network of the RGSQ (Study 1: four samples of students and adults) and its predictive validity in a task context (Study 2) and working sample (Study 3). Overall, we found support for the RGSQ's validity and demonstrated that the RGSQ operationalizes regulatory focus in accordance with the theory's core assumptions.     

Regulatory focus and illusions of control

Regulatory focus theory (Higgins, 1997, 1998) suggests that individuals in a promotion focus emphasize a congruence between an action and an intended outcome, which may foster illusions of control (IOC) even in the absence of an objective relationship between action and outcome. Individuals in a prevention focus should demonstrate a reverse bias that buffers against the development of IOC. Three studies were conducted to test this hypothesis, which either measured chronic individual differences in regulatory focus (Study 1) or manipulated regulatory focus (Studies 2 and 3). All studies found evidence that promotion-focused individuals report higher IOC concerning an uncontrollable outcome than prevention-focused individuals. In addition, Study 3 showed that IOC developed in a promotion focus buffer against the emotional consequences of failure. The results suggest that IOC evolve in a way that increases regulatory fit (Higgins, 2000).     

Effects of message framing and temporal context on college student drinking behavior

This study evaluated the interactive effects of message framing and temporal context on college student alcohol use. Participants (n = 228) were randomly assigned to read an alcohol prevention message that varied by message frame (gains vs. losses) and temporal context (short- vs. long-term consequences). Participants returned to the lab one month later to report their drinking behavior over the past month. As predicted, students exposed to the gain-framed message reported lower alcohol use (drank less frequently, drank fewer alcoholic beverages per drinking occasion, and engaged in less binge drinking) as compared to students exposed to the loss-framed message, but only if they read about short-term consequences of alcohol use. Message frame had no effect when participants were exposed to long-term consequences. This investigation extends previous research by demonstrating the effectiveness of message framing for reducing health-damaging behaviors and by identifying temporal context as a moderator of framing effects.     

Regulatory focus and attitudes to migrants

In two studies we examined the role of two regulatory foci (i.e., prevention and promotion) in predicting Australian's attitudes to different types of migrants. According to regulatory focus theory, promotion-focused self-regulation is concerned with nurturance and accomplishment needs and involves the pursuit of wishes and aspirations. As such, it results in sensitivity to positive outcomes and to relative pleasure from gains. On the other hand, prevention-focused self-regulation is concerned with security needs and is directed at meeting duties and obligations. As such, it results in sensitivity to negative outcome and relative pain from losses. In Study 1, as predicted, the extent of promotion focus (i.e., a concern with accomplishment and the pursuit of ideals) predicted more positive attitudes to culturally similar and economically beneficial migrants, whereas the extent of prevention focus (i.e., concern with security and meeting obligations) predicted more negative attitudes to migrants who are culturally dissimilar. In Study 2 we replicated and extended these findings, showing that the extent of promotion focus and a lack of concern with threats predicted positive attitudes to both culturally similar and economically beneficial migrants, which, in the case of the latter group, was mediated by a focus on the benefits these migrants provide. In the case of culturally dissimilar migrants, the extent of promotion focus and a concern with gains predicted more positive attitudes. However, for economically less beneficial migrants, neither the extent of promotion nor prevention focus was a predictor. Only lower concerns with threat predicted more positive attitudes to this migrant group. The results are discussed with respect to other determinants of attitudes to migrants and the implications for migration and asylum-seeker policy.     

Regulatory focus systems and personal values

The present studies sought connections between two highly influential, but separate motivational systems: the regulatory foci and personal values. Study 1 (N = 173) showed that promotion focus was positively associated with Achievement and negatively with Tradition values, whereas prevention focus was positively associated with Conformity and Security values, and negatively with Self‐Direction and Stimulation values. Furthermore, interdependent self‐construal moderated trait prevention focus' associations with Power, Benevolence, Universalism, and Conformity values. Study 2 (N = 150) showed that a promotion‐framed message evoked more compliant behavior among those scoring high on Stimulation, Achievement, and Self‐Direction values, but that a prevention‐framed message evoked more compliance among those high in Conformity values. The results suggested that the regulatory foci are associated with certain values, and that these values may increase motivation in promotion‐ versus prevention‐relevant situations. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The role of message framing in promoting MMR vaccination: evidence of a loss-frame advantage

This study examined the effects of message framing on intentions to obtain the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine for one's child and investigated whether Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) and perceived outcome efficacy variables mediate and/or moderate message framing effects. One hundred and forty women read either a loss-framed or gain-framed message and then completed measures assessing their intentions to obtain the MMR vaccine for their child, and TPB and outcome efficacy variables. Exposure to the loss frame increased intentions to obtain the MMR vaccine and influenced perceptions of outcome efficacy. This suggests that outcome efficacy, but not other TPB variables may mediate framing effects within the context of MMR vaccination. Message frame, in addition to TPB variables, significantly predicted unique variance in behavioural intentions. These findings are discussed within the context of Prospect Theory, perceived risk and prevention/detection behaviours.     

Using message framing to promote acceptance of the human papillomavirus vaccine.

OBJECTIVE: Use of message framing for encouraging vaccination, an increasingly common preventive health behavior, has received little empirical investigation. The authors examined the relative effectiveness of gain-versus loss-framed messages in promoting acceptance of a vaccine against human papillomavirus (HPV)-a virus responsible for virtually all cases of cervical cancer. DESIGN: Undergraduate women (N = 121) were randomly assigned to read a booklet describing the benefits of receiving (gain-framed message) or the costs of not receiving (loss-framed message) a prophylactic HPV vaccine. After reading the booklet, participants indicated their intent to obtain the HPV vaccine. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: A 5-item composite representing intentions to obtain the HPV vaccine. RESULTS: The effect of message framing on HPV vaccine acceptance was moderated by risky sexual behavior and approach avoidance motivation. A loss-framed message led to greater HPV vaccination intentions than a gain framed message but only among participants who had multiple sexual partners and participants who infrequently used condoms. The loss-frame advantage was also observed among participants high in avoidance motivation. CONCLUSION: Findings highlight characteristics of the message recipient that may affect the success of framed messages promoting vaccine acceptance. This study has practical implications for the development of health communications promoting vaccination.     

如何道歉更有效:调节聚焦与信息框架的作用

本研究结合调节聚焦理论探讨了如何道歉更有效。两个实验通过启动不同调节聚焦,创设冒犯情境并呈现不同框架的道歉信息,考察调节聚焦与道歉框架对道歉效果的影响。结果表明,向促进聚焦的受害者呈现积极框架的道歉信息、向防御聚焦的受害者呈现消极框架的道歉信息能改善受害者对冒犯者的评价,降低交往回避倾向,获得较好的道歉效果,且正确感是此种影响发生的内在机制。     

Approach/avoidance motivation, message framing, and health behavior: understanding the congruency effect

Health messages framed to be congruent with individuals’ approach/avoidance motivations have been found to be more effective in promoting health behaviors than health messages incongruent with approach/avoidance motivations. This study examines the processes underlying this congruency effect. Participants (undergraduate students, N=67) completed a measure of approach/avoidance orientation (the BIS/BAS scales) and read either a gain- or loss-framed message promoting dental flossing. Results demonstrated a congruency effect: Participants who read a congruently framed message had greater flossing efficacy, intended to floss more, and used more dental flosses than did the participants who read an incongruent message. Moreover, intention to perform the behavior predicted the congruency effect and self-efficacy mediated participants’ intentions to perform the health behavior. Discussion centers on the role of personality factors and situational factors in models of behavior change.