Boosting Inoculation’s Message Potency: Loss Framing

This article joins the well-established Prospect Theory (PT) with inoculation theory. Regulatory Focus Theory (RFT), an offspring theory of PT, is also mentioned as a way to contextualize the results of this study. A three-phase experiment set in the context of financial investing compared the ability of loss and gain frame inoculation messages to protect investor beliefs about staying in the stock market during financial crises. The dependent variables in this investigation were belief level and belief certainty about staying in the stock market during financial crises. Results indicate that, as hypothesized, loss frame inoculation messages protected beliefs better than gain frame messages. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.