Negative Outcomes,Threats and Threat Appeals: Widening the Conceptual Framework for the Study of Fear and Other Emotions in Social Marketing Communications

Abstract

Social marketing communicators have frequently utilized scare tactics or fear appeals to persuade people to cease undesired behaviors and adopt desired alternatives. Although there is now a general consensus in the literature on the usefulness of such appeals under certain conditions, much of the literature contains contradictory findings. In this paper, we argue that use of the term fear appeal is inappropriate and recommend the term threat appeal instead. The term threat appeal is more inclusive, since perceived threat generates a variety of cognitive and emotional responses, not just fear. Furthermore, the term fear appeal confounds stimulus factors (i.e., message content) and response factors (i.e., the reaction of fear), and, with the emphasis on generating a fear response, has led to neglect of message factors and other emotional responses that could mediate persuasion. It is likely that these neglects have contributed significantly to conflicting findings in the area. This paper attempts to refocus attention on stimulus factors and to widen the scope of study by offering: (a) a definition of threat appeals and their components; and (b) incorporating concepts from the Rossiter-Percy communication model and learning theory to provide an overall framework for more precisely developing and targeting the message content of threat appeals.