For Immediate Release
Contact:
Sean Wagner
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journalnews@bos.blackwellpublishing.net
Campaign Messages Influenced by "Perceived" Effectiveness
Major Implications Seen for Planning of Persuasive Message Campaigns
State College, Pa. – August 29, 2007 -There has been much interest in establishing a possible link between the perceived and actual effectiveness of persuasive messages. The possibility that persuasion and action can result from judging the message as effective or compelling has significant implications for persuasive campaigns. Whereas previous research has demonstrated that persuasion may follow from thought or emotion, a new study, published in Human Communication Research demonstrates that perceived effectiveness can be a cause of actual effectiveness.
A new study published in Human Communication Research examines fear/threat appeals and PSAs that prompted both action (such as a charitable giving) and non-action (such as refraining from driving drunk). In all cases, the perceived effectiveness of message delivery was found to cause direct influence on action. The responses were notable not only for their uniformity, but also for the variations in the conditions under which they were observed.
"Under common conditions, judgments of the perceived effectiveness of a persuasive message precede and underlie the actual effectiveness of that message," says lead author James Price Dillard of Penn State University.
These findings suggest that perceived effectiveness judgments may be used as valid indicators of the persuasiveness of messages during the pre-implementation phase of campaigns. By gathering data on the perceived effectiveness of their messages, campaign designers can determine whether a particular campaign will be effective enough to warrant spending money on.
"These results underscore the utility of perceived effectiveness judgments in formative campaign research and suggest perceived effectiveness as a persuasive strategy in its own right," says Dillard.
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This study is published in Volume 33 Issue 4 of Human Communication Research. Media wishing to receive a PDF of this article may contact journalnews@bos.blackwellpublishing.net.
James Price Dillard, Ph.D., is Head of the Department of Communication Arts & Sciences at Pennsylvania State University. He can be reached for questions at jdillard@psu.edu.
Human Communication Research is one of the official journals of the prestigious International Communication Association and concentrates on presenting the best empirical work in the area of human communication. It is a top-ranked communication studies journal and one of the top five journals in the field of human communication. Major topic areas for the journal include language and social interaction, nonverbal communication, interpersonal communication, organizational communication and new technologies, mass communication, health communication, intercultural communication, and developmental issues in communication. For more information, please visit www.blackwell-synergy.com/loi/hcre.
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