Responsibility in Health and Risk Messaging

Abstract

Health risk messages may appeal to the responsibility of individuals or members of interdependent dyads for their own or others’ health using many different message strategies. Health messages may also emphasize society’s responsibility for population health outcomes in order to raise support for health policy changes, and these, too, take many different forms. Message designers are inherently interested in whether these appeals to personal, interdependent, and societal responsibility are persuasive. The central question of interest is therefore whether perceptions of responsibility that result from these messages lead to the desired message outcomes. A growing body of empirical research does suggest that there is a direct persuasive effect of perceptions of personal responsibility and interdependent responsibility on health intentions or behaviors, as well as indirect persuasive effects of responsibility on intentions or behaviors via anticipated emotions, specifically regret, guilt, and pride. Research also suggests that perceptions of societal responsibility increase support for public health policy (i.e., the desired message outcome in societal responsibility messages). Important to this area of research is a conceptual definition of responsibility that lends itself toward identifying specific message features that elicit perceptions of responsibility. Specifically, attributions of causation and solution, obligation, and agency are identified as effect-independent message features of responsibility.

An Online Experiment Evaluating the Effects of Social Endorsement Cues, Message Source, and Responsibility Attribution on Young Adults’ COVID-19 Vaccination Intentions

“…Existing literature suggests that one-sided responsibility attribution, either individual or societal responsibility, may not be sufficient to convince individuals to adopt desired behaviors. This is because individuals believe that both individual and societal factors have some impact on the causes of and the solutions to health problems (Worthington, 2017). Instead, recent research shows that mentioning both individual and societal responsibilities while emphasizing one of them is most likely to make a message effective.…”

“…Each type of responsibility attribution has advantages and limitations. Overall, personal responsibility messages are most likely to motivate self-oriented health behaviors such as quitting smoking; interdependent responsibility messages encourage individuals to engage in other-oriented behaviors; and societal responsibility messages increase support for public health policy (Worthington, 2017). When it comes to specific health issues, however, scholars have identified mixed results regarding the effects of different types of responsibility attribution.…”

US Women's Perceptions and Acceptance of New Reproductive Health Technologies

“…Perceived responsibility to learn more about fertility was measured by two items 28 : (1) I feel a personal responsibility to learn more about my hormones with a/n (online consultation with a fertility specialist/home fertility test) and (2) learning more about my hormones with a/n (online consultation with a fertility specialist/home fertility test) is my responsibility.…”

“…Thus, it is important to investigate factors that influence women to accept and use OFCs and reproductive hormone SCTs. The technology acceptance model (TAM) 24 , 25 and extensions, including perceived risk and trust, 26 subjective norms, 27 and responsibility, 28 are useful for understanding new technology acceptance. The goal of this study was thus to examine factors that influence women's acceptance of these new reproductive health technologies using the TAM.…”

“…Perceptions of responsibility may be a key predictor of intentions to engage in health-related behaviors. 28 Theoretical frameworks, including the Norm Activation Model, 45 highlight the role of responsibility in predicting behavior. Likewise, meta-analyses have found that the inclusion of personal responsibility in the TPB explains an additional 3%–4% of the variation in intentions.…”