The Paradox of Tailored Messaging: When Precision Interferes with Privacy

Tailored health messaging has been shown to have a positive effect on behavioral outcomes, in part, because of factors such as high relevance and issue involvement. Tailored messages, however, can also backfire when they are perceived as invasive, which decreases message effectiveness. To disentangle the discrepancy between these seemingly contradictory conclusions, the present experiment (N = 451) investigates the effects of message specificity (explicit vs. implicit) on behavioral intention across two health topics. The evidence points to an interesting tradeoff between precision and invasiveness. Specifically, across two topics, greater tailoring precision enhances perceived invasiveness, which, in turn, triggers felt anger and negative cognitions, ultimately decreasing behavioral intention. These findings contribute to a gradually growing body of knowledge suggesting the contingent effects associated with tailored health communication.