{"id":1187,"date":"2014-01-25T11:07:36","date_gmt":"2014-01-25T00:07:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/?p=1187"},"modified":"2014-01-25T11:13:03","modified_gmt":"2014-01-25T00:13:03","slug":"fear-clear-action-effective-behaviour-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/?p=1187","title":{"rendered":"Fear + Clear Action = Effective Behaviour Change"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>people indulge in unhealthy behaviours to relieve stress and anxiety<\/li>\n<li>ads that cause stress and anxiety can drive unhealthy behaviours<\/li>\n<li>one solution is to couple compelling threats with clear and specific paths to behaviour change<\/li>\n<li>another approach is to apply the adicitive rewards that video games create for real life challenges<\/li>\n<li>SUPERBETTERLABS.COM build video games which build resilience and maintain motivation while working to overcome injuries, anxiety and depression<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.iodine.com\/blog\/anti-smoking-ads\/\">http:\/\/www.iodine.com\/blog\/anti-smoking-ads\/<\/a><\/p>\n<header>\n<h1><a title=\"Click to read Why Graphic Anti-Smoking Ads Make Some People Smoke More Cigarettes\" href=\"http:\/\/www.iodine.com\/blog\/anti-smoking-ads\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Why Graphic Anti-Smoking Ads Make Some People Smoke\u00a0<i>More<\/i>\u00a0Cigarettes<\/a><\/h1>\n<h2>Jessica Goldband<\/h2>\n<\/header>\n<div>\n<div><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/share\" data-related=\"iodine\" data-lang=\"en\" data-count=\"none\">Tweet<\/a><\/p>\n<div data-href=\"http:\/\/www.iodine.com\/blog\/anti-smoking-ads\/\" data-type=\"button\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><em><\/em>If these images make you squirm or want to click away, you\u2019re not alone.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/d2ujmuk7vwckqr.cloudfront.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/get-unhooked-man-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"get-unhooked-man-1\" src=\"http:\/\/d2ujmuk7vwckqr.cloudfront.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/get-unhooked-man-1.jpg\" width=\"350\" height=\"175\" \/><\/a><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"anti_smoking\" src=\"http:\/\/d2ujmuk7vwckqr.cloudfront.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/anti_smoking-229x300.jpg\" width=\"206\" height=\"270\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/d2ujmuk7vwckqr.cloudfront.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/130328_anti_smoking_ad_thumb.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"130328_anti_smoking_ad_thumb\" src=\"http:\/\/d2ujmuk7vwckqr.cloudfront.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/130328_anti_smoking_ad_thumb.jpg\" width=\"263\" height=\"197\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>How, then, can this type of message change the choices you make? Can we really be motivated by something that turns us off, rather than on?<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">You\u2019d think, perhaps intuitively, that the scarier the ad, the\u00a0<em>more<\/em>\u00a0powerfully it affects our behavior. And the research supports that argument. Indeed, since the classic 1964 Surgeon General report on\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/profiles.nlm.nih.gov\/NN\/B\/B\/M\/Q\/\" target=\"_blank\">\u201cSmoking and Health\u201d<\/a>\u00a0came out 50 years ago this month, that\u2019s been the basic strategy for health communication around the issue. But there\u2019s a catch. A BIG one.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">While we\u2019ve seen a significant drop in\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.latimes.com\/science\/la-sci-smoking-20140108,0,1986544.story#axzz2q1n8Wayj\">global smoking rates<\/a>\u00a0(down 25% for men and 42% for women) since those landmark reports in the 1960s demonstrated the link between smoking and lung cancer, many people continue to smoke: 31% of men and 6% of women. In the U.S., 18% of adults (down by half since 1964) continue to do something they know might kill them.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Public health agencies have spent years communicating the dangers of smoking. Their anti-smoking ads have grown increasingly disturbing, threatening us with graphic images of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=RHNI120Fjt4\">bulging tumors<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=GEWky9PEroU\">holes in our throats<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 possibly to try to reach that last stubborn segment of the population that hasn\u2019t kicked the habit.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Why aren\u2019t these ads working?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Turns out, the most recent and comprehensive research on so-called\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC3678850\/\">\u201cfear appeals\u201d and attitude change<\/a>\u00a0says that this kind of messaging does work, but\u00a0<em>only<\/em>\u00a0if the person watching the ad is confident that they are capable of making a change, such as quitting smoking. Public health gurus call this confidence in one\u2019s ability to make a change \u201cself-efficacy\u201d \u2014 and threats only seem to work when efficacy is high. (The reverse is also true.)<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">If someone lacks efficacy, ads with fear appeals don\u2019t help. In fact, they make the behavior<em>worse<\/em>.\u00a0How? Many people engage in unhealthy behavior because it makes them feel better and relieves their anxiety.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/lh6.googleusercontent.com\/FrNsCKB9fcW7daf5RiHYWktTaZT1rY_aioKKS4eGr9SNHCfmEOGOAz6FZLnMjiVf_9mXqCWc6Mpss0VgE9RkUBt5qDNcsAujXwsb3FDBzaAvC12AyXnfspfOtA\" width=\"205px;\" height=\"214px;\" \/><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">If you threaten someone who has little to no confidence they can change their behavior,<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>their anxiety goes through the roof. What do they do? Perhaps turn off the threatening ad, walk away, and light up a cigarette \u2014 the very behavior you were trying to prevent. This same principle applies to other coping behaviors, such as eating unhealthy types of food or just too much of it.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Unfortunately, anxiety is quite common in this country. According to a<a href=\"http:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/magazine\/archive\/2014\/01\/surviving_anxiety\/355741\/\">recent Atlantic article<\/a>, 1 in 4 Americans is likely to suffer from anxiety at some point in life. Making big life changes is tough, and it seems as though fear and anxiety don\u2019t energize people, they just paralyze them.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>So what\u2019s the solution?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">A step in the right direction would be for ad campaigns to couple compelling threats with equally clear and specific paths to behavior change. Or why not apply the rewards built into reaching a new level in addictive video games to apps that people can use for real-life challenges? One great example of this is\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.superbetterlabs.com\/\">Superbetter<\/a>, a social online game to help people build resilience and stay motivated while working to overcome injuries, anxiety, and depression.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Stand-alone threats implicitly assume that people don\u2019t already know how bad their choices are, and can drive them to the very behaviors they wish they could change. Truly effective ad campaigns might still appeal to our fears, but they should also let us wash it all down with a confidence chaser that empowers the more anxious among us to act on our fears.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>people indulge in unhealthy behaviours to relieve stress and anxiety ads that cause stress and anxiety can drive unhealthy behaviours one solution is to couple compelling threats with clear and specific paths to behaviour change another approach is to apply the adicitive rewards that video games create for real life challenges SUPERBETTERLABS.COM build video games &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/?p=1187\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Fear + Clear Action = Effective Behaviour Change<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,19,5,8,10,13,22,4,3,30,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-complex-adaptive-systems","category-cool","category-data-saving-lives","category-entrepreneurship","category-healthy-habits","category-nutrition","category-policy","category-quantified-self","category-rapid-learning-health-systems","category-startup","category-storytelling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1187"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1187\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1188,"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1187\/revisions\/1188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}