Message Framing in Public Service Advertisements and Food-Saving Intention: The Perspective of Anxiety

Dai Jiatong; Sheng Guanghua

doi:10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240220

PDF(407 KB)

Journal of Psychological Science ›› 2024, Vol. 47 ›› Issue (2) : 424-431. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240220

Social, Personality & Organizational Psychology

Message Framing in Public Service Advertisements and Food-Saving Intention: The Perspective of Anxiety

Dai Jiatong¹, Sheng Guanghua²

Author information +

History +

Abstract

With the promotion of the concepts of resource conservation and sustainable development, the issue of food waste has received increasing attention. Governments and enterprises commonly communicate with the public through public service advertisements (PSA) to advocate saving food. Message framing is a crucial tool to improve the effectiveness of advertisements. Existing studies believe that message framing has a significant impact on individual decision-making, but little attention has been paid to its impact on food saving. Especially, the previous studies have generally ignored the possible influence of anxiety, which is an important psychological factor that determines individual information processing, psychological response, and behavior. In the context of food-saving PSAs, this study firstly proposes a matching effect between anxiety and message framing on food-saving intention. On the basis of the Processing Efficiency Theory and the Limited Capacity Model of Motivated Mediated Message Processing (LC4MP), it explores the influence of message framing (approach-framed vs. avoidance-framed) on food-saving intention combining with anxiety from the perspective of limited cognitive resources. This study further discusses the underlying mechanisms in the view of both information processing and affective reaction, putting forward that the depth of processing and self-evaluation mediate the matching effect between anxiety and message framing on food-saving intention.
This study examines the hypotheses with 3 experiments. Experiments 1 and 2 tested the matching effect between message framing and anxiety on the food-saving intention by measuring (Experiment 1) and manipulating (Experiment 2) the anxiety level of the subjects. Experiment 3 examined the mediating roles of the depth of processing and self-evaluation and their serial mediating effect. The results of three experiments revealed that: (1) message framing and anxiety have a significant interaction effect on food-saving intention. Specifically, approach-framed (versus avoidance-framed) PSAs could increase the food-saving intention of individuals with a high level of anxiety. On the contrary, individuals with low anxiety show a higher food-saving intention when the PSAs employ avoidance-framed (versus approach-framed) messages. (2) The depth of processing and self-evaluation play significant mediating roles in the matching effect between anxiety and message framing on food-saving intention. (3) The interaction effect could be serially driven by the depth of processing and self-evaluation.
This study reveals that anxiety serves as a critical factor that influences the effectiveness of PSA message framing on food-saving intentions. This study is among the first to systematically elaborate on the influence of message framing on food-saving intention under different levels of anxiety. The conclusion contributes a new perspective to understanding the relationship between message framing and food-saving intention. It also expands the research of anxiety and message framing by combining the two research streams. This study further investigates the internal mechanisms from the lens of depth of processing and self-evaluation. It provides new explanatory mechanisms for the influence of message framing and anxiety on food-saving intentions and enriches existing research on depth of processing and self-evaluation. The conclusions also have important practical significance to guide the government and enterprises to formulate effective PSA strategies and to comprehensively advocate for the public to practice food-saving.

Key words

food-saving intention / message framing / anxiety / depth of processing / self-evaluation

Cite this article

EndNote

Ris (Procite)

Bibtex

Download Citations

Dai Jiatong, Sheng Guanghua. Message Framing in Public Service Advertisements and Food-Saving Intention: The Perspective of Anxiety[J]. Journal of Psychological Science. 2024, 47(2): 424-431 https://doi.org/10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240220

References

[1] 段锦云, 卢志巍, 张涵碧. (2016). 权力感对风险决策框架效应的影响. 心理科学, 39(2), 412-417.
[2] 刘扬, 孙彦. (2014). 行为决策中框架效应研究新思路——从风险决策到跨期决策, 从言语框架到图形框架. 心理科学进展, 22(8), 1205-1217.
[3] 盛光华, 戴佳彤, 解芳. (2020). 基于ELM理论的绿色消费多维整合模型构建与实态检验. 珞珈管理评论, 1, 135-151.
[4] 文思思, 李东进, 郑晓莹. (2017). 广告信息框架与消费者孤独感交互影响广告说服力的研究. 管理学报, 14(12), 1819-1828.
[5] Bandura, A. (1991). Social cognitive theory of self-regulation. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 50(2), 248-287.
[6] Bandura, A., & Cervone, D. (1983). Self-evaluative and self-efficacy mechanisms governing the motivational effects of goal systems. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 45(5), 1017-1028.
[7] Coats E. J., Janoff-Bulman R., & Alpert N. (1996). Approach versus avoidance goals: Differences in self-evaluation and well-being. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 22(10), 1057-1067.
[8] Dai, J. T., & Sheng, G. H. (2022). Advertising strategies and sustainable development: The effects of green advertising appeals and subjective busyness on green purchase intention. Business Strategy and the Environment, 31(7), 3421-3436.
[9] Eysenck, M. W., & Calvo, M. G. (1992). Anxiety and performance: The processing efficiency theory. Cognition and Emotion, 6(6), 409-434.
[10] Hayes, A. F., & Rockwood, N. J. (2017). Regression-based statistical mediation and moderation analysis in clinical research: Observations, recommendations, and implementation. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 98, 39-57.
[11] Hepsomali P., Hadwin J. A., Liversedge S. P., Degno F., & Garner M. (2019). The impact of cognitive load on processing efficiency and performance effectiveness in anxiety: Evidence from event-related potentials and pupillary responses. Experimental Brain Research, 237(4), 897-909.
[12] Janoff-Bulman R., Sheikh S., & Hepp S. (2009). Proscriptive versus prescriptive morality: Two faces of moral regulation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 96(3), 521-537.
[13] Lang, A. (2006). Using the limited capacity model of motivated mediated message processing to design effective cancer communication messages. Journal of Communication, 56(1), S57-S80.
[14] Li, L., & Peng, W. (2020). Does health information technology promote healthy behaviors? The mediating role of self-regulation. Health Communication, 35(14), 1772-1781.
[15] Liu J. Y., Shen K. H., & Li H. (2019). How state anxiety and attentional bias interact with each other: The moderating effect of cognitive appraisal. Attention, Perception, and Psychophysics, 81(3), 694-706.
[16] Ma J. J., Mo Z. C., & Gal D. (2021). The route to improve the effectiveness of negative PSAs. Journal of Business Research, 123, 669-682.
[17] Maheswaran, D., & Meyers-Levy, J. (1990). The influence of message framing and issue involvement. Journal of Marketing Research, 27(3), 361-367.
[18] Mckasy, M. (2020). A discrete emotion with discrete effects: Effects of anger on depth of information processing. Cognitive Processing, 21(4), 555-573.
[19] Mollen S., Holland R. W., Ruiter R. A. C., Rimal R. N., & Kok G. (2021). When the frame fits the social picture: The effects of framed social norm messages on healthy and unhealthy food consumption. Communication Research, 48(3), 346-378.
[20] Myles O., Grafton B., & Macleod C. (2020). Anxiety & inhibition: Dissociating the involvement of state and trait anxiety in inhibitory control deficits observed on the anti-saccade task. Cognition and Emotion, 34(8), 1746-1752.
[21] Pfeffer, I. (2013). Regulatory fit messages and physical activity motivation. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 35(2), 119-131.
[22] Rathschlag, M., & Memmert, D. (2013). The influence of self-generated emotions on physical performance: An investigation of happiness, anger, anxiety, and sadness. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 35(2), 197-210.
[23] Read, G. L. (2020). Processing ambiguous social identity: Disclosure of identity and phenotypic prototypicality affect processing and evaluation of persuasive messages. Journal of Communication, 70(5), 693-720.
[24] Salnikova, E., & Stanton, J. L. (2021). Remove the negatives or highlight the positives? The effect of negativity bias in food preferences. British Food Journal, 123(7), 2601-2616.
[25] Shen, L. J., & Dillard, J. P. (2009). Message frames interact with motivational systems to determine depth of message processing. Health Communication, 24(6), 504-514.
[26] Shiv B., Edell Britton J. A., & Payne J. W. (2004). Does elaboration increase or decrease the effectiveness of negatively versus positively framed messages? Journal of Consumer Research, 31(1), 199-208.
[27] Spielberger C. D., Gorsuch R. L., Lushene R. E., Vagg P. R., & Jacobs, G. A. (1983). Manual for the state-trait anxiety inventory (form Y1-Y2). Consulting Psychologists Press..
[28] Sun Y., Li S., Bonini N., & Su Y. (2012). Graph-framing effects in decision making. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 25(5), 491-501.
[29] Visschers V. H. M., Wickli N., & Siegrist M. (2016). Sorting out food waste behaviour: A survey on the motivators and barriers of self-reported amounts of food waste in households. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 45, 66-78.
[30] Zou P., Liu J. W., Liu H. L., & Lu Q. Q. (2017). How promotion-focused vs. prevention-focused function claims impact consumer purchase intention: The moderate effect of nutrition knowledge. Journal of Management Science, 30(5), 67-76.