What constitutes evidence that fear appeals have positive effects on health behaviour? Commentary on Kok, Peters, Kessels, ten Hoor, and Ruiter (2018)

Title
What constitutes evidence that fear appeals have positive effects on health behaviour? Commentary on Kok, Peters, Kessels, ten Hoor, and Ruiter (2018)
Publication Date
2018
Author(s)
Malouff, John M
( author )
OrcID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6728-7497
Email: jmalouff@une.edu.au
UNE Id une-id:jmalouff
Type of document
Journal Article
Language
en
Entity Type
Publication
Publisher
Routledge
Place of publication
United Kingdom
DOI
10.1080/17437199.2018.1445541
UNE publication id
une:23292
Abstract
The central argument of the provocative article by Kok et al. (2018) is that fear appeals usually do not work to change health-related behaviour. The main basis for the argument is that (1) there are no convincing studies with experimental methods (the gold standard of research) that show fear appeals work in the absence of high-self-efficacy to change the health behaviour and (2) smokers have low self-efficacy for quitting. I agree with the authors that experimental methods are good for reaching causal conclusions. I also agree that the higher the self-efficacy individuals have for changing a health-related behaviour, the more likely they are to make the change. Finally, I agree that behaviour change is the most important type of change a person can make with regard to reducing health risks. I will describe briefly below my disagreements with aspects of the article. The disagreements relate to ways to show causation, how much self-efficacy smokers have, the importance of stages of change in quitting, and the importance of prevention.
Link
Citation
Health Psychology Review, 12(2), p. 133-135
ISSN
1743-7202
1743-7199
Start page
133
End page
135

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