November 18, 2020

The Effects of Agency Assignment and Reference Point on Responses to COVID-19 Messages

Category: Article Summary

Topic: Public Health Policy and Practice

Keywords (Tags): public health communications

When the threat of SARS-CoV2 is presented with more active language, participants report a greater degree of anger, arguing with sources, and disbelief (“negative cognition”), whereas perception of susceptibility to SARS-CoV2 infection and severity of COVID-19 disease were unchanged. In an online study with 207 participants recruited from Amazon MTurk, when SARS-CoV-2 was presented in a more active manner (“the virus is more likely to prey on people in the coming days”) participants reported higher psychological reactance than when conveyed in a more human-centered fashion (“more people are likely to contract the virus in the coming days”). The authors acknowledge that the study cohort (mostly white, middle-class males) may not be representative of the general population and may be subject to social desirability bias.

Ma and Miller. (Nov 16, 2020). The Effects of Agency Assignment and Reference Point on Responses to COVID-19 Messages. Health Communication. https://doi.org/10.1080/10410236.2020.1848066