Issue Involvement, Message Appeal and Gonorrhea: Risk Perceptions in the US, England, Malaysia and Singapore

Abstract

This study was an effort to examine the impact of involvement with the topic on the effects of health risk messages. It employed a 2 (low vs. high level of involvement with the topic)^/2 (physical vs. social appeal)^/2 (within-subject pretest vs. posttest)^/4 (four countries) mixed repeated-measures design. Of the 911 college students who participated in the pretest, a total of 700 students completed the experiment and posttest. Regardless of message condition, country, and time, high involvement participants reported greater perceived susceptibility, perceived severity, perceived response efficacy, intention to use condoms, condom interpersonal impact, knowledge about gonorrhea, fear arousal, and perceived content learning scores, but lower message reactance and defensive avoidance scores than low involvement participants. High involvement participants also had greater increase in posttest scores for perceived susceptibility, perceived response efficacy, perceived self-efficacy, intention to use condoms, and condom self-control than low involvement participants. These findings suggest that high involvement individuals were likely to go through danger control, and hence were more persuaded by high fear appeal messages than low involvement individuals.