Adolescent and young adult response to fear appeals in anti-smoking messages
Purpose – This paper aims to investigate the level of fear experienced by students aged 13 to 30 years, in response to different types of anti-smoking fear appeals. It seeks to extend and validate Quinn et al.'s study by specifically comparing adolescent and young adult responses to fear appeal...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Journal Article |
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Emerald Group Publishing Limited
2013
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/5628 |
| _version_ | 1848744849651531776 |
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| author | Ferguson, Graham Phau, Ian |
| author_facet | Ferguson, Graham Phau, Ian |
| author_sort | Ferguson, Graham |
| building | Curtin Institutional Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | Purpose – This paper aims to investigate the level of fear experienced by students aged 13 to 30 years, in response to different types of anti-smoking fear appeals. It seeks to extend and validate Quinn et al.'s study by specifically comparing adolescent and young adult responses to fear appeals. Design/methodology/approach: A total of 548 useable questionnaires were collected via a self-administered questionnaire based on established scales. Factor analysis, T tests and ANOVA were used to replicate Quinn et al.'s analysis of the data. Findings – The main results are consistent with previous findings that adolescents and non-smokers experience more fear. Further, general health and factual appeals cause the most fear across all ages but adolescents were more fearful of factual appeals and social ostracism appeals than young adults possibly indicating that factual and social appeals are better targeted at adolescents than young adults. The results were broadly similar to Quinn et al.'s results. Practical implications – Advertisers often use realistic fear appeals to attract the attention of the intended recipient, to scare the recipient into processing the information, and to get them to act in response to the anti-smoking message. However, because adolescents and nonsmokers experience more fear, social marketers, governments, schools and parents need to customise fear appeals to suit these recipients.Originality/value – The current study re-tests and revalidates the effect of these different appeal types amongst adolescents and young adults. The results will help clarify which type of fear appeal causes more fear amongst adolescents and young adults in Australia, 20 years on from Quinn et al.'s study. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T06:08:00Z |
| format | Journal Article |
| id | curtin-20.500.11937-5628 |
| institution | Curtin University Malaysia |
| institution_category | Local University |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T06:08:00Z |
| publishDate | 2013 |
| publisher | Emerald Group Publishing Limited |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | curtin-20.500.11937-56282017-09-13T14:41:03Z Adolescent and young adult response to fear appeals in anti-smoking messages Ferguson, Graham Phau, Ian factual appeals young consumers adolescent fear appeals health Purpose – This paper aims to investigate the level of fear experienced by students aged 13 to 30 years, in response to different types of anti-smoking fear appeals. It seeks to extend and validate Quinn et al.'s study by specifically comparing adolescent and young adult responses to fear appeals. Design/methodology/approach: A total of 548 useable questionnaires were collected via a self-administered questionnaire based on established scales. Factor analysis, T tests and ANOVA were used to replicate Quinn et al.'s analysis of the data. Findings – The main results are consistent with previous findings that adolescents and non-smokers experience more fear. Further, general health and factual appeals cause the most fear across all ages but adolescents were more fearful of factual appeals and social ostracism appeals than young adults possibly indicating that factual and social appeals are better targeted at adolescents than young adults. The results were broadly similar to Quinn et al.'s results. Practical implications – Advertisers often use realistic fear appeals to attract the attention of the intended recipient, to scare the recipient into processing the information, and to get them to act in response to the anti-smoking message. However, because adolescents and nonsmokers experience more fear, social marketers, governments, schools and parents need to customise fear appeals to suit these recipients.Originality/value – The current study re-tests and revalidates the effect of these different appeal types amongst adolescents and young adults. The results will help clarify which type of fear appeal causes more fear amongst adolescents and young adults in Australia, 20 years on from Quinn et al.'s study. 2013 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/5628 10.1108/17473611311325555 Emerald Group Publishing Limited fulltext |
| spellingShingle | factual appeals young consumers adolescent fear appeals health Ferguson, Graham Phau, Ian Adolescent and young adult response to fear appeals in anti-smoking messages |
| title | Adolescent and young adult response to fear appeals in anti-smoking messages |
| title_full | Adolescent and young adult response to fear appeals in anti-smoking messages |
| title_fullStr | Adolescent and young adult response to fear appeals in anti-smoking messages |
| title_full_unstemmed | Adolescent and young adult response to fear appeals in anti-smoking messages |
| title_short | Adolescent and young adult response to fear appeals in anti-smoking messages |
| title_sort | adolescent and young adult response to fear appeals in anti-smoking messages |
| topic | factual appeals young consumers adolescent fear appeals health |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/5628 |