S. Zebregs

The Differential Impact of Statistical and Narrative Evidence on Beliefs, Attitude, and Intention: A Meta-Analysis

Although “evidence” is often used as an important argument in persuasive health campaigns, it remains unclear what type of evidence has the strongest impact on particular outcome variables. We conducted a meta-analysis in which the effects of statistical and narrative evidence on beliefs, attitude, and intention were separately compared. Statistical evidence was found to have a stronger influence than narrative evidence on beliefs and attitude, whereas narrative evidence had a stronger influence on intention. We explain these findings in terms of the match between the specific characteristics of the two types of evidence and those of the outcome variables. Statistical evidence, beliefs, and attitude all relate primarily to cognitive responses, whereas both narrative evidence and intention relate more specifically to affective responses. We conclude that communication professionals developing health campaigns should match the type of evidence to the main communication objectives.

The effects of narrative versus non-narrative information in school health education about alcohol drinking for low educated adolescents

BackgroundTraditionally most health education materials are written in an expository non-narrative format. Scholars have argued that the effectiveness of materials may increase when these texts are replaced by narrative texts, and that the non-narrative texts should be replaced by narrative texts. However, no previous studies have tested these claims in the context of school health education for low educated adolescents. This study aims to do so for an existing preventive health education intervention about alcohol for low educated adolescents. Based on the empirical findings of previous studies, it is expected that the claims about narratives being more effective than non-narrative texts are not true for effects on knowledge. Instead non-narrative texts are expected to have a stronger impact on this outcome variable. For attitude towards alcohol and intention to drink alcohol the claims are expected to be true, because participants are expected to be less aware of the persuasive intent of the narrative texts, which would make them less resistant. As a result, narrative texts are expected to have a stronger effect on attitude and intention.MethodsThis study compares the effects on knowledge, attitude towards alcohol, and intention to drink alcohol of both information formats in a two-condition (non-narrative vs. narrative information) experiment with repeated measures (pre-measurement, immediate post-measurement, and delayed post-measurement). The experiment was conducted amongst 296 students of the two lowest levels of the Dutch secondary education system.ResultsThe results showed immediate effects on knowledge and attitude towards alcohol, which did not differ between conditions and school levels. These effects did not persist over time. There were no effects on intention to drink alcohol.ConclusionIt is concluded non-narrative and narrative information are equally effective in the context of school health education, suggesting the claims that scholars have made about the superior effects of narrative texts are not true. Given the fact that narrative texts are more expensive to develop, policy makers may not be advised to prefer these types of texts over the traditionally used non-narrative texts.

Is It More Feeling or Thinking? The Influence of Affective and Cognitive Attitude on Adolescents’ Intention to Engage in Binge Drinking

Previous work has revealed that interventions aiming to reduce adolescent binge drinking commonly focus on cognitive attitudes, but are insufficiently effective in changing binge-drinking intentions. The focus on these cognitive attitudes might be the reason for this insufficient success. That is, other work has revealed that affective attitudes have a stronger influence on binge-drinking intention than cognitive attitudes. However, this relation has so far only been found among traditional college students and pre-vocational school students, therewith neglecting another important population at risk, namely vocational community college students. This study examines whether affective attitudes are also significantly stronger influencers of binge-drinking intentions among vocational community college students. Using a sample of 298 vocational community college students (Mage = 17.63), the current study shows that affective attitudes were more strongly related to vocational community college students’ intention to engage in binge drinking than cognitive attitudes. This finding indicates that the effectiveness of interventions targeting adolescent binge drinking can be improved by incorporating content elements concerning affective attitudes.

Taking Close Others’ Environmental Behavior Into Account When Striking the Moral Balance? Evidence for Vicarious Licensing, Not for Vicarious Cleansing

Research shows that people search for balance in their moral (e.g., environmentally friendly) behaviors such that they feel licensed to behave less morally after a previous moral act (licensing) and cleanse previous morally questionable behaviors by subsequently behaving more morally (cleansing). This article investigates whether this balancing may extend to close others, but not to nonclose others, and tests vicarious licensing and cleansing in the environmental domain. Study 1 showed that vicarious licensing effects are more likely when a close other displayed environmentally friendly (vs. neutral) behavior. Study 2 showed that environmental vicarious licensing effects are more likely for close than nonclose others. Studies 3 and 4 suggested that vicarious licensing effects, but not vicarious cleansing effects are more likely for close (vs. nonclose) others. Finally, a meta-analysis showed that overall these studies provide evidence for vicarious licensing effects, but not for vicarious cleansing effects in the environmental domain.

Voorlichtingsmaterialen over alcohol voor vmbo- en praktijkscholieren

In this paper we present three studies that have been conducted amongst first year prevocational and special education students in which we examined whether narratives increase the effectiveness of health education materials. We compare various forms of narratives with standard expository materials. Results show short-term effects of exposure to health education materials on knowledge about the negative consequences of drinking alcohol. This effect is similar for materials with and without narratives. We did not find any effects on attitude or intention to drink alcohol.

The effectiveness of narrative versus informational smoking education on smoking beliefs, attitudes and intentions of low-educated adolescents

Objective: This study tests the effectiveness of narrative versus informational smoking education on smoking beliefs, attitudes and intentions of low-educated adolescents. Design: A field experiment with three waves of data collection was conducted. Participants (N = 256) were students who attend lower secondary education. At the first and third waves, they completed a questionnaire. At the second wave, 50.8% of the participants read a smoking education booklet in narrative form and 49.2% read a booklet in informational form. After reading, all participants also completed a questionnaire at wave 2. Main outcome measures: Beliefs about negative consequences of smoking, attitudes towards smoking and intentions to smoke were measured. Results: Repeated measures analyses with time as a within-subjects factor and condition as a between-subjects factor showed that beliefs about smoking were more negative at Wave 2 compared to Wave 1, irrespective of condition. However, attitudes towards smoking were more positive at Wave 3 compared to Wave 1 when participants had read the narrative version. Conclusion: These results show that narrative smoking education is not more effective than informational smoking education for low-educated adolescents and can even have an unintended effect for this target group by making attitudes towards smoking more positive.

Smoking education for low-educated adolescents: Comparing print and audiovisual messages

This study aims to provide insight into which modality is most effective for educating low-educated adolescents about smoking. It compares the persuasive effects of print and audiovisual smoking education materials. We conducted a field experiment with two conditions (print vs. video) and three measurement times (Time 1, Time 2, and Time 3). A total of 221 high school students in the second year of the lowest levels of education in the Netherlands participated at all three time points of the study. Results showed that participants in both conditions had more negative beliefs about smoking after being exposed to the smoking education than before, but there were no differences between the print and video version in this effect. However, the video version did make the attitude toward smoking more negative at Time 3 compared to baseline, whereas the text version did not, which suggests that the video version was more effective for educating low-educated adolescents about smoking.