This is because, while anxiety can motivate positive health behaviour, it can also be maladaptive, as some individuals form a defensive response to mitigate the negative feeling arising from the fear appeal.
32.
For example, a fear appeal message stressing the likelihood of premature death for individuals who smoke may also reach the children of people who smoke, leading to avoidable anxiety in such groups.
33.
Mixed results have been produced from studies that attempt to demonstrate the effectiveness of fear appeals for behavior modification, and a recent meta-analysis recommended extreme caution in the use of fear appeals.
34.
The persuasive effect of fear appeals is thought to be influenced by several factors such as individual characteristics, self-efficacy, perception of norms, fear strength, perceived threat, perception of treatment efficacy, and defense mechanisms.
35.
It is assumed that through a fear appeal the perception of threatening stimuli creates subjective expected utility theory, the protection motivation theory, the health belief model, the theory of reasoned action, and the transtheoretical model.
36.
Another argument states that since higher levels of personal efficacy are necessary, the target of the fear appeal who is most likely to act is one who is most likely to change his behavior to begin with.
37.
The proposed fear pattern theory builds on drive-reduction ) model that was one of the earlier major theories of how fear appeals work, based on the assumption that it is fear reduction that makes such an appeal effective.
38.
Higher levels of perceived susceptibility are associated with greater intention to change behavior in the manner recommended in the fear appeal message, and are a strong determinant of intentions and behavior, even in the face of weak arguments.
39.
With the health belief model, it is unclear whether self-efficacy is directly considered a cost of performing a suggested action because occasionally, a fear appeal is thought to be less effective if a difficulty of acting is considered a cost of acting.
40.
He showed the effects of various elements in the SMCR model on persuasion : sources ( high credibility vs . low credibility, sleeper effect ), types of messages ( one-sided vs . two-sided, fear appeals ) and channels on cognitive and affective changes.
