Daniel Priolo

Quand l'engagement précède l'appel à la peur : une forme de communication engageante

Behavioural change can be obtained notably by using commitment (Kiesler, 1971) or persuasion. These two approaches can complement each other in some situations and be in opposition in others. We suppose that commitment to a non-healthy behaviour inhibits the persuasive effects of a message of fear appeal whereas commitment to a healthy behaviour increases them. We propose two experiments in which smokers were committed to a nonhealthy or healthy behaviour before reading a message (fear appeal vs neutral). The results partially support our hypotheses. Indeed, commitment to a non-healthy behaviour does not impede adoption of the preventive initiative whereas commitment to a healthy behaviour facilitates it.