14 DAY TRIAL // Although messages like "Smoking pot may not kill you, but it will kill your mother" are exaggerated and most of them, false, a study carried out by Kirsten A. Passyn (Salisbury University) and Mita Sujan (Tulane University) suggests that these are much more effective than positive hopeful or feel-good messages.
"Making people feel good is less important than making people feel accountable when it comes to making wise decisions about self-protection. Our work separates intentions from implementation and clarifies the role of emotions in this process," the researchers said.
Whether it involves persuading people to use sunscreen or eat high fiber foods, good intentions can be elicited by a variety of appeals. However, getting people to actually follow through on these intentions and change their behavior requires appeals combining fear and an emotion high in self-accountability, such as regret, guilt or challenge.
"[This research] suggests a new emotion-based approach to encouraging a wide range of health protection behaviors. We illustrate the critical role of emotions in persuasion, especially for translating tendencies into action," they explain.
In conclusion, next time you see a social an ad which sounds like the overly exaggerated slogan of a radical group that wants to emphasize the negative effect of a certain behavior, filter the unnecessary content and exaggerations and the message might look more appealing.