By Bunyamin Najmi
Introduction
A great deal of marketing effort is aimed at persuasion, which may be defined as “attempted attitude and behavior change”. Attitudes are essentially stable structures and are not easily modified. Marketers can think of the attitude components and attempt to focus on one of them in their effort to change attitudes (Evans et al., 2006). Besides humor, fear is one of the more commonly used bases for persuasion in mass communications. Practices across the various continents suggest that fear appeals are an effective strategy for changing attitudes or behaviors (Das, 2001) because fear assumed as a driver or a motivator of behavior (Leventhal, 1974).
The potential effects of fear appeals on persuasion have been tested extensively on a broad variety of topics, such as tetanus inoculation, seat belt, dental hygiene, smoking, venereal disease (Das, 2001), public health campaigns (Hastings & Stead, 2004), road safety and safe sex for a number of reasons (SWOV, 2009).
There are various research findings about how fear appeals exactly work. One of the pioneer researchers is Howard Laventhal (1969) in his study “Fear Appeals and Persuasion: The Differentiation of a Motivational Construct” found that both fear and effectiveness of the communication influenced attitudes and intentions. He further concluded that when people are faced with danger, they prefer to do something rather than nothing, and they always prefer the most effective means of control regardless of the intensity of their emotions. The more vivid the threat, the more important it is to do something. But even when fear is high and recommendations poor, they show no signs of denial.
However, the most recent meta-analysis concluded that the preponderance of evidence supports a linear model of fear arousal—the more fear, the greater persuasion—and that there is no evidence to support the inverted-U-shaped model of fear (Witte & Allen, 2000).
This study explores how people effected by fear appeals. In particular, focus on how level of fear effects on consumer behavior. Thus, the study investigates the effects of fear appeals on consumer’s cognition, affection and purchase intention in Employees’ Social Security.
Method
The research involved one hundred and seven male and female of social security members. They participated in the experiment. The experiment consisted of two designs, high and low level of fear.
There were three dependent variables: Consumer cognition, affection, and purchase intention after reinformationing information. We measured those three dependent variables using measurement which was developed by Fenghueih Huarng, Jan-hui Liao, Bao-lin Lin (2006).
We measured Information cognition by asking subjects to rate the degree of their agreement to the following six questions: (1) INDONESIAN EMPLOYEES’ SOCIAL SECURITY on this information is helpful to me. (2) This information delivers important INDONESIAN EMPLOYEES’ SOCIAL SECURITY explanation. (3) I agree with the viewpoint of INDONESIAN EMPLOYEES’ SOCIAL SECURITY in this information. (4) After viewing this information, I obtained some knowledge about INDONESIAN EMPLOYEES’ SOCIAL SECURITY. (5) This information fits consumers’ need. (6) This information provides a lot of INDONESIAN EMPLOYEES’ SOCIAL SECURITY explanation.
We measured affection by asking subjects to rate the degree of their agreement to the following six questions: (1) I like this information. (2) I like the wording content of this information. (3) This information is hard to understand. (4) This information is impressive. (5) This information is attractive. (6) This information is persuasive.
We measured Purchase Intention by the following seven questions: (1) I want to know more about INDONESIAN EMPLOYEES’ SOCIAL SECURITY. (2) I would like to introduce INDONESIAN EMPLOYEES’ SOCIAL SECURITY to others. (3) It is worth to join INDONESIAN EMPLOYEES’ SOCIAL SECURITY as shown in the information. (4) If I need a social security in the future, I will join INDONESIAN EMPLOYEES’ SOCIAL SECURITY. (5) If my friends need social security protection, I would recommend them to join INDONESIAN EMPLOYEES’ SOCIAL SECURITY. (6) If I need social security in the future, I would definitely to Join INDONESIAN EMPLOYEES’ SOCIAL SECURITY. (7) Without the restriction of budget, I would like to join INDONESIAN EMPLOYEES’ SOCIAL SECURITY.
All questions were measured by a Likert scale of seven points from 1 = very disagree to 7 = very agree.
Result and Discussion
The validity test using Pearson Correlation for benefit appeal result: all six cognition and effect items were pass the validity test because sig. (2-tailed) lower than 0.05. Two items of Purchase Intention .145 (I want to know more about INDONESIAN EMPLOYEES’ SOCIAL SECURITY) and Purchase Intention .170 (Without the restriction of budget, I would like to join INDONESIAN EMPLOYEES’ SOCIAL SECURITY) the items both were deleted because sig. (2-tailed) higher than 0.05, while five items were pass the validity test sig. (2-tailed) lower than 0.05.
The validity test using Pearson Correlation for fear appeal result: all six cognition and Purchase Intention items were pass the validity test because sig. (2-tailed) lower than 0.05. One item of Ad Effect .145 (This information is hard to understand) was deleted because sig. (2-tailed) higher than 0.05, while five items were pass the validity test sig. (2-tailed) lower than 0.05.
The values of Cronbach coefficient alpha for six cognition items, six affect items, seven PI items of benefit appeals are .946, .817, and .895 (n = 51) respectively. The values of Cronbach coefficient alpha for six Ad cognition items, six Ad affect items, seven PI items of fear appeals .942, .742, and .971 (n = 56) respectively. The alpha coefficient for the all variables is higher than .70 suggesting that the items have relatively high internal consistency.
Levene's Test of Equality of Error Variancesa shows that F value of Cognition = 3.844 with .053 significant, Affection F=.191 with .663 significant, and Purchase Intention F =5.335 with .023 significant. All F is not significant because > .005 so all dependent variables are homogeneous.
The Value of Box’s M=8.441 with .225 significant. It is > 0.05. Hypothesis 0 (H0) is accepted. The observed covariance matrices of the dependent variables are equal across groups. (Table 4)
F for Pillae Trace, Wilk Lambda, Hotelling Trace, Roy’s Largest Root.x have signification more than 0,05. Meaning, F value for Pillae Trace, Wilk Lambda, Hotelling Trace, Roy’s Largest Root is not significant = .867. So, there’s no differentiation between cognition, affection and Purchase Intention using high or low level of fear.
Tests of “between-subjects effects”, as shown below (cognition), F Value= .623 with signification =.432, (Affection), F Value= .003 with signification =.954, and (Purchase Intention), F Value= .043 with signification =.837 all the results are > .005 significant.
The results suggest that there are no differentiation between cognition, affection and Purchase Intention using high or low level of fear.
Conclusions and Implications for Theory and Practice
The results of this research show that there are no correlation among influence cognition, affection and purchase intention in both high and low level of fear. And also there’s no evidence that using high level of fear is more effective than low level of fear to influence cognition, affection and Purchase Intention in Indonesian Employee’s Social Security. High and low levels of fear appeals are have similar effect to cognition, affection and Purchase Intention. The results provide useful input to policy makers and to marketers to choose an effective mass communication or advertising campaign. Further research ideas stemming from this include the effect of fear appeals on social marketing.
REFERENCES:
________SWOV Fact Sheet: Fear-based information campaigns (April 2009)
Brian Sternthal and C. Samuel Craig (1974). Fear Appeals: Revisited and Revised.
Enny Das (2001). How fear appeals work, Motivational biases in the processing of fear-arousing health communications.
Fenghueih Huarng (2006). Jan-hui Liao, Bao-lin Lin, Using Fear Appeal in Green PC Advertising.
Howard Leventhal (1969). Fear Appeals and Persuasion: The Differentiation Of A Motivational Construct.
Jay D. Lindquist & M. Joseph Sirgy (2009) Shopper, Buyer, and Consumer Behavior.
John Webb (2004). Fear Appeals in Social Marketing: Strategic and Ethical Reasons for Concern
Kim Witte (1993). Message and Conceptual Confounds in Fear Appeals: The Role of Threat, Fear, and Efficacy.
Leshner, Glenn., Vultee, Frederick and Bolls, Paul. (2007). When a Fear Appeal isn’t a Fear Appeal: The Effects of Graphic Antitobacco Messages.
Martin Evans, Ahmad Jamal and Gordon Foxall (2006). Consumer Behaviour.
Mukul G. Asher, Social Security Reform Imperatives: The Southeast Asian Case (2006)
Introduction
A great deal of marketing effort is aimed at persuasion, which may be defined as “attempted attitude and behavior change”. Attitudes are essentially stable structures and are not easily modified. Marketers can think of the attitude components and attempt to focus on one of them in their effort to change attitudes (Evans et al., 2006). Besides humor, fear is one of the more commonly used bases for persuasion in mass communications. Practices across the various continents suggest that fear appeals are an effective strategy for changing attitudes or behaviors (Das, 2001) because fear assumed as a driver or a motivator of behavior (Leventhal, 1974).
The potential effects of fear appeals on persuasion have been tested extensively on a broad variety of topics, such as tetanus inoculation, seat belt, dental hygiene, smoking, venereal disease (Das, 2001), public health campaigns (Hastings & Stead, 2004), road safety and safe sex for a number of reasons (SWOV, 2009).
There are various research findings about how fear appeals exactly work. One of the pioneer researchers is Howard Laventhal (1969) in his study “Fear Appeals and Persuasion: The Differentiation of a Motivational Construct” found that both fear and effectiveness of the communication influenced attitudes and intentions. He further concluded that when people are faced with danger, they prefer to do something rather than nothing, and they always prefer the most effective means of control regardless of the intensity of their emotions. The more vivid the threat, the more important it is to do something. But even when fear is high and recommendations poor, they show no signs of denial.
However, the most recent meta-analysis concluded that the preponderance of evidence supports a linear model of fear arousal—the more fear, the greater persuasion—and that there is no evidence to support the inverted-U-shaped model of fear (Witte & Allen, 2000).
This study explores how people effected by fear appeals. In particular, focus on how level of fear effects on consumer behavior. Thus, the study investigates the effects of fear appeals on consumer’s cognition, affection and purchase intention in Employees’ Social Security.
Method
The research involved one hundred and seven male and female of social security members. They participated in the experiment. The experiment consisted of two designs, high and low level of fear.
There were three dependent variables: Consumer cognition, affection, and purchase intention after reinformationing information. We measured those three dependent variables using measurement which was developed by Fenghueih Huarng, Jan-hui Liao, Bao-lin Lin (2006).
We measured Information cognition by asking subjects to rate the degree of their agreement to the following six questions: (1) INDONESIAN EMPLOYEES’ SOCIAL SECURITY on this information is helpful to me. (2) This information delivers important INDONESIAN EMPLOYEES’ SOCIAL SECURITY explanation. (3) I agree with the viewpoint of INDONESIAN EMPLOYEES’ SOCIAL SECURITY in this information. (4) After viewing this information, I obtained some knowledge about INDONESIAN EMPLOYEES’ SOCIAL SECURITY. (5) This information fits consumers’ need. (6) This information provides a lot of INDONESIAN EMPLOYEES’ SOCIAL SECURITY explanation.
We measured affection by asking subjects to rate the degree of their agreement to the following six questions: (1) I like this information. (2) I like the wording content of this information. (3) This information is hard to understand. (4) This information is impressive. (5) This information is attractive. (6) This information is persuasive.
We measured Purchase Intention by the following seven questions: (1) I want to know more about INDONESIAN EMPLOYEES’ SOCIAL SECURITY. (2) I would like to introduce INDONESIAN EMPLOYEES’ SOCIAL SECURITY to others. (3) It is worth to join INDONESIAN EMPLOYEES’ SOCIAL SECURITY as shown in the information. (4) If I need a social security in the future, I will join INDONESIAN EMPLOYEES’ SOCIAL SECURITY. (5) If my friends need social security protection, I would recommend them to join INDONESIAN EMPLOYEES’ SOCIAL SECURITY. (6) If I need social security in the future, I would definitely to Join INDONESIAN EMPLOYEES’ SOCIAL SECURITY. (7) Without the restriction of budget, I would like to join INDONESIAN EMPLOYEES’ SOCIAL SECURITY.
All questions were measured by a Likert scale of seven points from 1 = very disagree to 7 = very agree.
Result and Discussion
The validity test using Pearson Correlation for benefit appeal result: all six cognition and effect items were pass the validity test because sig. (2-tailed) lower than 0.05. Two items of Purchase Intention .145 (I want to know more about INDONESIAN EMPLOYEES’ SOCIAL SECURITY) and Purchase Intention .170 (Without the restriction of budget, I would like to join INDONESIAN EMPLOYEES’ SOCIAL SECURITY) the items both were deleted because sig. (2-tailed) higher than 0.05, while five items were pass the validity test sig. (2-tailed) lower than 0.05.
The validity test using Pearson Correlation for fear appeal result: all six cognition and Purchase Intention items were pass the validity test because sig. (2-tailed) lower than 0.05. One item of Ad Effect .145 (This information is hard to understand) was deleted because sig. (2-tailed) higher than 0.05, while five items were pass the validity test sig. (2-tailed) lower than 0.05.
The values of Cronbach coefficient alpha for six cognition items, six affect items, seven PI items of benefit appeals are .946, .817, and .895 (n = 51) respectively. The values of Cronbach coefficient alpha for six Ad cognition items, six Ad affect items, seven PI items of fear appeals .942, .742, and .971 (n = 56) respectively. The alpha coefficient for the all variables is higher than .70 suggesting that the items have relatively high internal consistency.
Levene's Test of Equality of Error Variancesa shows that F value of Cognition = 3.844 with .053 significant, Affection F=.191 with .663 significant, and Purchase Intention F =5.335 with .023 significant. All F is not significant because > .005 so all dependent variables are homogeneous.
The Value of Box’s M=8.441 with .225 significant. It is > 0.05. Hypothesis 0 (H0) is accepted. The observed covariance matrices of the dependent variables are equal across groups. (Table 4)
F for Pillae Trace, Wilk Lambda, Hotelling Trace, Roy’s Largest Root.x have signification more than 0,05. Meaning, F value for Pillae Trace, Wilk Lambda, Hotelling Trace, Roy’s Largest Root is not significant = .867. So, there’s no differentiation between cognition, affection and Purchase Intention using high or low level of fear.
Tests of “between-subjects effects”, as shown below (cognition), F Value= .623 with signification =.432, (Affection), F Value= .003 with signification =.954, and (Purchase Intention), F Value= .043 with signification =.837 all the results are > .005 significant.
The results suggest that there are no differentiation between cognition, affection and Purchase Intention using high or low level of fear.
Conclusions and Implications for Theory and Practice
The results of this research show that there are no correlation among influence cognition, affection and purchase intention in both high and low level of fear. And also there’s no evidence that using high level of fear is more effective than low level of fear to influence cognition, affection and Purchase Intention in Indonesian Employee’s Social Security. High and low levels of fear appeals are have similar effect to cognition, affection and Purchase Intention. The results provide useful input to policy makers and to marketers to choose an effective mass communication or advertising campaign. Further research ideas stemming from this include the effect of fear appeals on social marketing.
REFERENCES:
________SWOV Fact Sheet: Fear-based information campaigns (April 2009)
Brian Sternthal and C. Samuel Craig (1974). Fear Appeals: Revisited and Revised.
Enny Das (2001). How fear appeals work, Motivational biases in the processing of fear-arousing health communications.
Fenghueih Huarng (2006). Jan-hui Liao, Bao-lin Lin, Using Fear Appeal in Green PC Advertising.
Howard Leventhal (1969). Fear Appeals and Persuasion: The Differentiation Of A Motivational Construct.
Jay D. Lindquist & M. Joseph Sirgy (2009) Shopper, Buyer, and Consumer Behavior.
John Webb (2004). Fear Appeals in Social Marketing: Strategic and Ethical Reasons for Concern
Kim Witte (1993). Message and Conceptual Confounds in Fear Appeals: The Role of Threat, Fear, and Efficacy.
Leshner, Glenn., Vultee, Frederick and Bolls, Paul. (2007). When a Fear Appeal isn’t a Fear Appeal: The Effects of Graphic Antitobacco Messages.
Martin Evans, Ahmad Jamal and Gordon Foxall (2006). Consumer Behaviour.
Mukul G. Asher, Social Security Reform Imperatives: The Southeast Asian Case (2006)
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