Fear, coping, and information: a pilot study on motivating a healthy response

The importance of fear and maladaptive health behavior responses within the ordered protection motivation threat persuasion framework is investigated. By observing the initial creation of maladaptive responses, the results indicate that without adaptive coping response information, high threat information and fear cause avoidance and other maladaptive responses. These influences, in turn, reduce intentions to adopt the recommended adaptive protection behavior. When adaptive coping response information is provided after a threatening fear appeal, maladaptive responses' negative effects are reduced, and adaptive protection behavior intentions are increased. The results of this study have important implications for health and social marketing campaigns (e.g., prevention of AIDS, drug abuse), where maladaptive responses may be responsible for a significant number of program failures.