A Comparison of Health Communication Models: Risk Learning Versus Stereotype Priming

Health communication research and practice have been strongly influenced by the protection motivation theory (Rogers, 1975, 1983), the health belief model (Becker, Haefner, Kasl, et al., 1977; Becker, Haefner, & Maiman, 1977; Rosenstock, 1974), and similar conceptualizations. I refer to these as risk learning models because the goal is to teach new information about health risks and the behaviors that will minimize those risks. These models have garnered a substantial amount of empirical support and are apparently quite useful to practitioners (Conner & Norman, 1996). The goal of this article is to describe a less familiar, but complementary, approach to persuading people to avoid risky behaviors, which I will refer to as the stereotype priming model (Bargh, 1989; Bargh, Chen, & Burrows, 1996; Bargh, Raymond, Pryor, & Strack, 1995). The goal is to make salient preexisting social stereotypes about people who do or do not behave as advocated. The stereotype priming model posits that the stereotypes that we possess regarding the personality traits of groups of people (e.g., smokers, drunk drivers, marijuana users, people with suntans) to a large extent govern our behavior. In this view, it is sometimes useful to capitalize on and reinforce preexisting stereotypes in order to encourage healthy, and/or discourage unhealthy, behaviors. This article reviews the traditional risk learning models and evidence that supports them, provides corresponding information for the stereotype priming model, compares and contrasts the models, and discusses how the stereotype priming model might be used to design health communications campaigns.