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This meta-analysis examined the validity of various theoretical assumptions about cognitive and behavioral change following a communication recommending condom use. The synthesis comprised 82 treatment and 29 control groups included in 46 longitudinal reports with measures of perceived severity and susceptibility, attitudes and expectancies, norms, perceptions of control, intentions, knowledge, behavioral skills, or condom use. Results indicated that across the sample of studies, communications taught recipients about facts related to HIV and also induced favorable attitudes and expectancies, greater control perceptions, and stronger intentions to use condoms in the future. Moreover, messages that presented attitudinal information and modeled behavioral skills led to increased condom use. Results are discussed in the context of theories of human behavior and change and in reference to HIV-prevention interventions. KeywordsHIV and condom use; behavior; attitude; persuasion; intervention; meta-analysis Client-centered approaches and pragmatic skill-building interventions to reduce infection with HIV appear to be indispensable tools in reducing the epidemic of this disease (Kelly, 1982; Kelly & St. Lawrence, 1988, 1990. However, interventions to prevent HIV infection must also use less effortful yet persuasive approaches to reach large audiences at different Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Dolores Albarracín, Department of Psychology, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida 32611. dalbarra@ufl.edu. HHS Public Access Author Manuscript Author ManuscriptAuthor ManuscriptAuthor Manuscript levels of risk for HIV. In persuasive communications, a standard recommendation is presented, accompanied by material designed to increase the chance that message recipients will comply with the recommendation. Given the number of communications to prevent HIV that have been delivered over the years, there should be considerable knowledge about the impact of these communications on condom use. To date, however, there has been no precise estimation of the impact of persuasive messages that recommend condom use, nor is there knowledge of the general impact of different types of persuasive arguments designed to increase condom use. For example, the health belief model (Janz & Becker, 1984;Rosenstock, 1974;Rosenstock, Strecher, & Becker, 1994) and the protection-motivation theory (Floyd, Prentice-Dunn, & Rogers, 2000;Rogers, 1975) imply that communications will increase condom use when they induce recipients' (a) fear of the severity of the disease and (b) beliefs that they are personally susceptible to it (but see the null meta-analytic findings of Gerrard, Gibbons, & Bushman, 1996). However, other conceptualizations identify different factors that are relevant to behavioral change. The theory of reasoned action (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975) and the theory of planned behavior (Ajzen & Madden, 1986; for a meta-analysis, see Albarracín, Johnson, Fishbein, & Muellerleile, 2001) suggest that communicati...

Research shows that people display a downward shift in their predictions in anticipation of performance and feedback. The authors used a misattribution paradigm to explore whether anxiety serves as a signal for predictions. Participants (N = 108) anticipating results from an important test either immediately or in a few days were or were not encouraged to attribute any arousal they experienced to coffee they consumed earlier. Consistent with predictions, participants encouraged to attribute their arousal to the coffee were optimistic in their predictions even when anticipating immediate test feedback. In addition, the more participants attributed their arousal to the coffee, the more optimistic they were in their predictions. Ancillary analyses suggest that anxiety can be a cause rather than a consequence of less optimistic predictions.

Two experiments examined whether the type of information that determines persuasion varies as a function of the message recipients' chronic motivation for cognitive closure. Results of Study 1 indicated that individuals relatively high in dispositional need for closure processed a persuasive message according to heuristic cues and failed to attend systematically to the message content. In contrast, individuals relatively low in dispositional need for closure scrutinized the message content, presumably due to a greater motivation to process information. Study 2 tested the hypothesis that individuals high in dispositional need for closure may process a message systematically if a heuristic cue was unavailable to provide an easy means for closure. The data supported this hypothesis. These findings suggest that the interaction between the motivation for closure and the type of information available moderates the route to persuasion pursued.

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