Fear appeals, defensive avoidance and their application to road safety messages

277 Pages·2016·2.02 MB·English

by  Rebecca Anne Pedruzzi

ResearchOnline@JCU

This file is part of the following reference:

Pedruzzi, Rebecca Anne (2015) Fear appeals, defensive
avoidance and their application to road safety messages.
PhD thesis, James Cook University.

Access to this file is available from:

http://researchonline.jcu.edu.au/43782/

The author has certified to JCU that they have made a reasonable effort to gain
permission and acknowledge the owner of any third party copyright material
included in this document. If you believe that this is not the case, please contact
[email protected] and quote
http://researchonline.jcu.edu.au/43782/
Fear appeals, defensive avoidance and their application to road safety messages.

Rebecca Anne Pedruzzi
B. Psych (Hons)

Thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy (Psychology)

Department of Psychology
James Cook University
September, 2015
i

Statement of Access
I, the undersigned author of this work, understand that James Cook University will
make this thesis available for use within the University library and via the Australian
Digital Thesis network for use elsewhere. I understand that, as an unpublished work, a
thesis has significant protection under the Copyright Act.

Rebecca Pedruzzi Date
ii

Statement of Sources
I declare that this thesis is my own work and has not been submitted in any form for
another degree or diploma at any university or any other institution of tertiary
education. I declare that I have stated clearly and fully in the thesis the extent of any
collaboration with others. To the best of my knowledge and belief, the thesis contains
no material previously published by any other person except where due
acknowledgement has been made. Every reasonable effort has been made to gain
permission and acknowledge the owners of copyright material. I would be pleased to
hear from any copyright owner who has been omitted or incorrectly acknowledged.

Rebecca Pedruzzi Date
iii

Ethics Declaration
The research presented and reported in this thesis was conducted in accordance with the
National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) National Statement on
Ethical Conduct in Human Research, 2007. The proposed research study received
human research ethics approval from the James Cook University Human Research
Ethics Committee, Approvals H3791; H4576; H5043.

Rebecca Pedruzzi Date
iv

Statement on the Contribution of Others
I recognise the financial contribution of the Australian Federal Government provided
through an Australian Postgraduate Award Scholarship.
I recognise the financial and infrastructural contribution of James Cook University
through providing me a work station, access to resources, and funding to conduct my
research and attend conferences.
I recognise the financial contribution of the Graduate Research School who awarded
Graduate Research Scheme grants for attendance at domestic and international
conferences.
I recognise the support, guidance, and input provided by my primary supervisor Dr
Anne Swinbourne and secondary supervisor Professor Frances Quirk.

Rebecca Pedruzzi Date
v

Acknowledgements
The community response to my research amongst North QLD towns was spectacular
and I am forever grateful. Thank you to all the groups and organisations that advertised
or participated in this research.
To my primary advisor Dr Anne Swinbourne, your consistent belief in my ability
certainly got me through the toughest parts of this degree. The skills you instil in your
students, in particular your focus on big picture issues, have made me a better
researcher and problem solver on all accounts. I can’t thank you enough for your years
of guidance, tough love, and laughs.
To my secondary advisor Professor Frances Quirk, thank you for being the mediator.
Whenever I needed an alternative point of view, I knew where to go. Your advice and
encouragement, especially in the final stages of this PhD, has been truly valuable.
A special note of thanks to the ever expanding lab group ‘The Penthouse Crew.’ The
fun times, friendship, and environment of peer review have helped shape this thesis. To
Kayla, I’m so glad we experienced our PhD journeys together. The best part of this
journey is that I found the wonderful friend I have in you. Thank you for the chats, the
skype sessions, the wine when needed, and for insisting that I learn how to use shortcut
keys! To my lifelong friends, my QLD girls, thank you for providing plenty of fun and
a lot of perspective. I am truly blessed to have had your constant, unwavering source of
support throughout this degree.
To Mum and Dad, you have opened a world of possibilities for your children by
insisting that a tertiary education was not optional. Without your support and direction,
I’m not sure I would have found a profession that I value so much. To my sister
Francine, thank you for your common sense and for always giving me a place to stay
whenever I made the journey from Perth to Townsville. Having a home I could treat as
my own (without the house chores!) made my PhD write up much more pleasant.
And finally to my husband Zekai, none of this would have been possible without you.
The support you have given me over the years is more than I could have ever hoped for.
You are certainly a man in a million.
vi

List of Works
The following is a list of publications, presentations and interviews which have arisen
directly from this thesis.
Peer reviewed conference publications
Pedruzzi, R., Swinbourne, A., & Quirk, F. (2013). Can the Extended Parallel Process
Model predict attention to health information? Suggestions for health campaigns.
Psychology & Health, 28 (Supp 1). p. 135.
Pedruzzi, R., Swinbourne, A., and Quirk, F. (2012) Who is in control? The
development of a model for communicating health information. Psychology &
Health, 27 (Supp 1). p. 102.
Pedruzzi, R., Swinbourne, A., and Quirk, F. (2012) One size fits all: communicating the
unknown in health promotion. International Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 19
(Supp 1). S273-S274.
Peer reviewed conferences
Pedruzzi, R., Swinbourne, A., & Quirk, F. (2013). Health behaviours, control and
uncertain outcomes: Perspectives for health messages. Oral presentation at the
Stress and Anxiety Research Society conference, 1-3 July, Faro, Portugal.
Pedruzzi, R., Swinbourne, A.L., & Quirk, F. (2012). The development of a model
predicting attention to health information: Why perceived control is crucial. Oral
presentation at the Population Health Congress 2012: Population health in a
changing world, 9-12 September, Adelaide Convention Centre, Adelaide,
Australia.
Pedruzzi, R., Swinbourne, A.L., & Quirk, F. (2011). Attending to health risk
information: Is denial always maladaptive? Oral presentation at the 32nd
International conference of the Stress and Anxiety Research Society, Munster,
Germany.
Pedruzzi, R., Swinbourne, A.L., & Quirk, F. (2011). Attending to health risk
information: Is denial always maladaptive? Oral presentation at the 46th Annual
Australian Psychological Society conference, 4-8 October 2011, National
Convention Centre, Canberra, Australia.
Media interviews
Win news Media interview 10/02/2014 (Townsville, North QLD).
ABC North Queensland Breakfast radio interview 10/02/2014
http://blogs.abc.net.au/queensland/2014/02/do-you-think-youre-a-good-driver.html
“Study looks at Risky Behaviour” General news article published in the Townsville Sun
on 26/02/2014, Townsville, QLD.
vii

Abstract
Mass media advertising has an important role to play in road safety efforts,
particularly in creating awareness and enhancing risk perceptions (Delhomme et al.,
2009; Elliott, 2011). Poor methodological design, and a lack of scientific evaluation
mean that it is difficult to determine if road safety campaigns are effective let alone
what elements make them effective (Wundersitz, Hutchinson, & Woolley, 2010). Elliot
(2011) suggests that the first aim of road safety campaigns should be to gain audience
attention. The message then needs to be remembered, not necessarily as a message but
the associations with the recommended behaviour. This process is often performed in
road safety advertising through the use of threatening and graphic car crash scenes
(Castillo-Manzano, Castro-Nuño, & Pedregal, 2012; Lewis, Watson, & White, 2008a).
Some practitioners have cautioned that employing these types of messages in health
promotion may be ineffective as they can lead to defensive responses such as avoidance
or denial (Hoekstra & Wegman, 2011; Ruiter, Abraham, & Kok, 2001; Witte & Allen,
2000). However, this hypothesis is rarely explored in the road safety field. Identifying
how and when avoidance occurs could be valuable and aid in the creation of appropriate
mass media communications.
The present research programme considered evidence from both the road safety
and broader health literature in aiming to understand the factors that may lead to the
avoidance or acquisition of road risk information. As such, road threats were compared
with the health threat of Coronary Heart Disease (CHD) often employed in the
literature. The factors under investigation included the role of positive beliefs (both
optimism and unrealistic optimism) and cognitive precursors such as threat, efficacy
and control appraisals.
viii

Study 1 (n=311) employed a between subjects design that presented participants
with threatening essay information about road or CHD outcomes. In the road condition,
road crash outcomes were characterised by low perceived personal control and high
control attributed to the role of other people. This was very different to control
appraisals for the CHD condition where health outcomes were characterised by high
perceived personal control and low perceived control attributed to others. Results
demonstrated an interaction effect between the condition and perceived control where
the adaptive effects of optimism were only noted in the CHD condition. Specifically,
recall of risk information was greatest for optimists in the CHD condition characterised
by high perceived personal control. These results suggested that the role of optimism in
facilitating recall of risk information may largely be an artefact of perceived control
appraisals. As such identifying targets characterised by high perceived personal control
in road safety might be important to the acquisition of risk information.
Study 2 (n=207) aimed to investigate the outcomes individuals perceived they
could personally control with regard to road threats. This was performed relative to
CHD threats. Results demonstrated the qualitatively different nature of threatening
road outcomes. Overall, participants’ beliefs in their ability to carry out risk and
protective road behaviours were not related to beliefs in their ability to control road
crash outcomes. However, there were strong relationships between behavioural control
and perceived control over legal sanctions (specifically the occurrence of fines). In
contrast for a CHD threat, participants perceived that what they did behaviourally
influenced the occurrence of a heart attack outcome, via controlling a number of
markers (e.g. blood pressure, weight) that indicate an individual is at risk. These
findings demonstrate why threatening road messages characterised by crash outcomes
are not ideal to use in road safety promotion efforts. Instead, messages presenting fine