framed messages only worked as predicted for people who were concerned with the
target health behaviour (e.g. skin cancer detection). The extent to which a person holds
a positive or negative attitude towards the target health behaviour is also important.
In a study of intentions to use hormonal male contraception, O’Connor, Ferguson
and O’Connor (2005) found that the hypothesized framing effects were only observed
in men with a positive attitude towards the behaviour. Thus personal involvement
and positive attitude towards the behaviour facilitate framing effects and thereby
moderate the relationship between framing and motivation.
Thus framing information and advice in terms of benefits or gains so that this
corresponds to how a recommended action is perceived (i.e. low risk behaviours are
prompted using gains) can enhance the impact of risk information on motivation and
behaviour. However, framing effects should be pre-tested on the target audience and
individual characteristics considered before materials are produced.
Since Rothman and Salovey introduced their framing postulate in 1997, a number
of important reviews of the scientific literature testing the effectiveness of message
framing in relation to promoting health behaviours have been published (e.g. Covey,
2014; Gallagher and Updegraff, 2012; O’Keefe and Jensen, 2009; O’Keefe and Nan,
2012). Specifically, researchers have been interested in examining whether gain frames
always facilitate prevention behaviours and loss frames always encourage detection
behaviours. The accumulated evidence suggests that the findings are mixed and that
they are influenced by important dispositional variables and individual differences. For
example, in a meta-analysis of 53 studies aimed at encouraging disease detection
behaviours, the results showed that loss-framed messages (highlighting the disadvantages
of noncompliance with the communicator’s recommendation) were only slightly more
effective than gain-framed messages, though, the difference was statistically significant
(O’Keefe and Jensen, 2009). More recently, another meta-analysis of the persuasive
impact of message framing on attitudes, intentions and behaviours also concluded that
the loss-frame appeals were not very effective for promoting detection behaviours
(Gallagher and Updegraff, 2012). However, these authors did find that gain-framed
messages were significantly more effective for promoting prevention behaviours.
Dispositional factors might account for these mixed findings. It is possible that the
relative persuasiveness of gain- and loss-framed health messages will be influenced by
fairly stable dispositional factors and/or individual differences (e.g. need for cognition,
self efficacy). This was the focus of an influential recent review conducted by Covey
(2014) that identified a number of important moderators of message framing effects.
Specifically, she reported that factors such as ambivalence, approach-avoidance
motivation, need for cognition and self-efficacy beliefs influenced the effectiveness of
the different health messages. The major conclusion of this work suggests that health
messages will be most influential and persuasive if the frame is tailored to the individual.
Social influence motives and principles
Social influence can be understood in terms of the key underlying motives that facilitate
cognitive change (Cialdini and Trost, 1998). First, people want to access valid sources
of information about their reality. When we see other people looking behind us we
sensibly want to turn around to see what is there. This type of influence has been
172 MOTIVATION AND BEHAVIOUR