In this blog post, we will examine the persuasive effects of fear appeals, how they work, and the conditions for their effective use.
Fear appeals persuade recipients by emphasizing the harmful consequences of not following the advice contained in the message, and have been the subject of persuasion strategy researchers since the early 1950s. Janis, who represents early research, focused on the persuasive effect of fear appeals, which had not been addressed in previous studies. As a result of conducting an experiment in which fear appeals were presented to recipients at three different levels, he found that fear appeals at the middle level had the greatest persuasive effect. This shows that fear appeals at high levels can cause recipients to ignore the message by making them overly fearful, while fear appeals at low levels weaken persuasiveness.
Lebendahl, who advanced the study of fear appeals, criticized Janis’s research for being biased toward the emotional aspects of humans, arguing that the effectiveness of fear appeals is related not only to the emotional responses of the audience but also to their cognitive responses. He called emotional responses “fear control responses” and cognitive responses “risk control responses.” He argued that when the latter is activated, recipients follow the recommendations of fear appeals, but when the former is activated, recipients tend to ignore the risks implied in fear appeals in order to control the fear caused by them. This contributed significantly to understanding the complex mechanism of fear appeals.
Summarizing these previous studies, Witty first identified “threat” and “efficacy” as the two factors that determine the persuasive effect of fear appeals. If the audience perceives that the risk contained in the fear appeal is something they may experience and that the degree of risk is high, then the fear appeal has a high level of threat. Furthermore, if the recipient believes that following the recommendation in the fear appeal will prevent the risk and that they are capable of following the recommendation, the level of efficacy is high. Suppose a club sent a notice to its members saying, “Please be sure to attend the meeting. If you do not attend, your membership will be revoked.” Losing membership is a high level of threat to people who are strongly attached to the club’s activities. And if they feel that it is not difficult for them to attend the club meeting, the recommendation in the notice will give them a high level of efficacy.
Witty linked these two factors to the two control reactions mentioned by Levendahl and drew the following conclusion. When both the level of threat and the level of efficacy are high, risk control responses are activated, and when the level of threat is high but the level of efficacy is low, fear control responses are activated. However, when the level of threat is low, the recipient feels that the threat has no effect on them, and regardless of the level of efficacy, there is no response to fear appeals. This conclusion, which integrates previous theories on fear appeals, has become an important stepping stone for subsequent research.
In addition, recent studies are analyzing in greater detail the limitations and possibilities of fear appeals as a persuasion strategy. For example, discussions on the long-term effects of fear appeals are still ongoing. Although it may be effective in the short term, there is a possibility that the audience may become resistant to fear over time or become desensitized to repeated fear appeals. Therefore, when using fear appeals, it is necessary to carefully consider the frequency and intensity of the message and the audience’s response.
In conclusion, fear appeals can be a powerful tool for enhancing the effectiveness of persuasive messages, but in order to maximize their effectiveness, sophisticated strategies that take into account both the emotional and cognitive responses of the audience are necessary. Balancing threats and efficacy and adjusting the frequency and intensity of messages are key to successful fear appeal strategies.
