Fear appeal, coping appeal and mobile health technology persuasion: a two-stage scenario-based survey of the elderly
Information Technology & People
ISSN: 0959-3845
Article publication date: 1 February 2022
Issue publication date: 13 January 2023
Abstract
Purpose
Prior researches on the adoption of mobile health services (MHS) concentrate on the subjective cognitive appraisals resulting in technology adoption, while ignoring how to shape those cognitive appraisals by the objective message design strategies which are easier to operate in practice. Based on protection motivation theory (PMT), the current research aims to explore the antecedents of cognitive appraisals by focusing on message design strategies of fear appeal and coping appeal.
Design/methodology/approach
A two-stage scenario-based survey of 204 participants was conducted to collect data. The authors chose SPSS and covariance-based structural equation modeling (CB-SEM) approach with the software LISREL 8.8 to test our model.
Findings
The results show that the relationship between fear appeal and fear arousal is inverted U-shaped such that the degree of fear arousal is the greatest when the fear appeal is at a moderate level. Perceived usefulness for the message with negative framing is higher than that with positive framing. Furthermore, fear appeal and coping appeal have a significant interaction on the adoption of MHS at different stages.
Research limitations/implications
The sample data of this study come from a special health service of a special group in China, which limits the universality of our research results for other groups or health care services. Therefore, future researchers can validate the model in other research scenarios and sample populations.
Originality/value
This study shows how fear appeal and coping appeal work together to influence individuals' adoption intention. The authors’ findings expand the theoretical depth of PMT and fear theory, enriching the theoretical connotation of framing effect in mobile health technology adoption context, which add new insights to design more persuasive messages through fear appeal and coping appeal for researchers and MHS providers in mobile health communication or propaganda.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The work described in this paper was partially supported by the grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Project No. 71974148, 71904149, 71921002, 71832010, 72125001, 72071054), the Humanities and Social Sciences Foundation of the Ministry of Education, China (Project 17YJC630157), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Project No. 2020AI012).
Citation
Sun, Y., Feng, Y., Shen, X.-L. and Guo, X. (2023), "Fear appeal, coping appeal and mobile health technology persuasion: a two-stage scenario-based survey of the elderly", Information Technology & People, Vol. 36 No. 1, pp. 362-386. https://doi.org/10.1108/ITP-07-2021-0519
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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