Perceived Message Effectiveness: Do People Need to Think About Message Effectiveness to Report the Message as...

Area of Science:

• Health Communication
• Psychology
• Behavioral Science

Background:

• Perceived message effectiveness (PME) judgments are crucial for understanding health communication outcomes.
• The cognitive processes underlying PME judgments, particularly the role of spontaneous thought and emotions, remain largely unexplored.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate whether spontaneous thoughts about message effectiveness are necessary for reporting high PME.
• To examine the role of emotions as precursors to PME in the context of e-cigarette prevention messages.

Main Methods:

• 1,968 adult current/former smokers and nonsmokers viewed e-cigarette prevention messages.
• Participants provided open-ended thoughts and completed close-ended PME rating scales.
• Expressed PME variables were coded from open-ended responses; emotions and measured PME were assessed.

Main Results:

• Four expressed PME variables (positive/negative message perceptions, positive/negative effect perceptions) were significantly associated with measured PME.
• Both positive and negative emotions predicted expressed and measured PME.
• Negative message perceptions mediated the link between emotions and PME, influencing perceived risk and behavioral intentions.

Conclusions:

• Messages may not require inducing explicit effectiveness thoughts to be perceived as effective.
• Thoughts indicating message ineffectiveness are significant predictors of PME and warrant further investigation.
• Emotional responses play a key role in shaping PME and subsequent health-related outcomes.