Abstract
Strong health messages may result in reactance, increasing unhealthy behaviors. Reactance is purported to be derived of both cognitive and affective factors. The current study investigated the extent to which these cognitive and affective reactance components accounted for the link between message exposure on intentions and behavior. Emerging adults who never attended college (N = 244) completed an online study assessing anger and negative cognitions towards high or low threat anti-binge drinking messages. Intentions to drink and binge drink in the next week and drinking behaviors 1 week later were assessed. High threat messages elicited more anger and negative cognitions than low threat messages. High threat messages had a significant total indirect effect on intentions but had no effect on drinking behaviors. These outcomes suggest that while immediate cognitive and affect reactance has an effect on intentions, it may not influence longer-term decision making and may not outweigh benefits of strong messages.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 984-990 |
| Number of pages | 7 |
| Journal | Journal of Behavioral Medicine |
| Volume | 42 |
| Issue number | 5 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Oct 1 2019 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2019, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.
Keywords
- Anger
- Emerging adults
- Health messages
- Negative cognitions
- Psychological reactance
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General Psychology
- Psychiatry and Mental health
