Encouraging impulsive adolescents attending college to eat more fruit and vegetables: A preliminary investigation of negative urgency, message format and frame

TL;DR

This study explores how message format and framing affect fruit and vegetable consumption in impulsive adolescents, finding that negative urgency influences persuasion.

Contribution

The study introduces a novel approach to tailoring health messages based on adolescents' negative urgency levels.

Findings

High negative urgency adolescents responded best to non-narrative messages in gain-framed conditions.

Low negative urgency adolescents were more persuaded by narrative messages in gain-framed conditions.

Negative urgency moderates the effectiveness of message format and frame in health communication.

Abstract

Adolescents high in negative urgency who are prone to emotion-driven impulsiveness and can be easily distracted, tend to eat unhealthily and may respond differently than those low in negative urgency to formatted and framed messages encouraging fruit and vegetables consumption. An experiment (N = 212) was conducted with a 2 (format: non-narrative vs narrative) × 2 (frame: loss vs gain) factorial design having participants’ level of negative urgency as a moderator. Findings revealed a three-way interaction between negative urgency, message format and frame. In the gain-framed condition, adolescents high on negative urgency were persuaded best by non-narrative messages, whereas those low on negative urgency were best persuaded by narrative messages. These findings provide initial evidence that recipients’ negative urgency influences how persuasive message framing and format are in encouraging adolescents to consume more fruit and vegetables. These results have implications for the construction of effective health appeals to adolescent populations.

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