Dissertation (Ph.D.)--The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 2009. / Directed by Rosemery O. Nelson-Gray; submitted to the Dept. of Psychology. Title from PDF t.p. (viewed May 17, 2010). Includes bibliographical references (p. 72-92).

Thesis (M.A.)--York University, 2004. Graduate Programme in Interdisciplinary Studies. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 137-144). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url%5Fver=Z39.88-2004&res%5Fdat=xri:pqdiss &rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:MR11760

The first objective in this dissertation was to use microanalysis and a dyadic approach to investigate infant social responsiveness. Therefore, I developed a method that used a projective pairs framework: Parental social actions towards infants (i.e., overtures) projected particular infant behaviours. I analyzed whether infant behaviours following these overtures matched what the overture had projected; if they matched, the infant’s behaviours were a response. The data were one family’s home videos of their triplet infants (two males, one female), filmed when the infants were 6 to 15 months old. When the triplets were approximately three years old, clinical assessment indicated that one of the males had Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), which impairs an individual’s social behaviors. The second objective here was to test whether the projective pairs framework would reveal early social deficits in the infant with ASD. This result would hold potential for earlier diagnosis (and thus earlier intervention). Researchers have used home videos to look for signs of ASD retrospectively, but these studies have been vulnerable to variability in the data, and often analyses of infant social behaviours did not connect these behaviours to their social, dyadic context. In this dissertation, the home videos were from one family; therefore the data were more homogeneous, and the projective pairs framework preserved the immediate context. The data for Study I were 23 minutes of excerpts (infants’ age 11-15 months). The microanalysis focused on overall infant responsiveness (i.e., the number of times each infant responded over the number of overtures that infant received). The infant with ASD was significantly less responsive than his two siblings. The data for Study II were all of the family’s home videos from when the infants were 6-15 months old (approximately 6 hours). Study II included (1) an exploration of specific functions of overtures (e.g., greeting the infant, getting the infant’s attention), and (2) an analysis of infant behaviours preceding overtures (e.g., looking at the parent, actively engaged elsewhere). The findings from Study II replicated Study I, they also painted a more complex picture. First, like his siblings, the infant with ASD responded to all non-social overtures, almost all helping overtures (e.g., taking a bottle that the parent had passed), and approximately half of overtures that served to seek his attention or to tell him to do something. Second, the infant with ASD was significantly less responsive to parental overtures that were more ambiguous (e.g., playing with the infant, narrating the infant’s actions). Third, regardless of the overture’s function, the infant with ASD was more likely to respond if he had looked at the parent immediately before the overture or if the overture included his name. A dyadic approach to the microanalysis of infant responsiveness identified those social interactions in which (1) the infant with ASD was as responsive as his siblings; (2) the infant with ASD was significantly less responsive than his siblings; and (3) the infant with ASD was the most responsive.

Adolescence heralds a unique period of vulnerability to depressive symptoms. The current study examined relational victimization, targeting adolescents’ interpersonal relationships, as a unique predictor of depressive symptoms in a broad age range of adolescents. Past research shows that interpersonal resources—particularly emotional support—are negatively related to depression. In this study, the moderating effects of emotional support from mothers, fathers, and peers on the association between relational victimization and depressive symptoms were investigated. As expected, high levels of maternal and peer emotional support buffered the association between relational victimization and depressive symptoms. Emotional support from fathers did not moderate this relationship. Findings also suggest that while support from peers is protective against concurrent depressive symptoms, it can be detrimental to adolescent’s mental health over time. In contrast, maternal emotional support buffers future depressive symptoms associated with past experiences of relational victimization.

This research examined the impact of eyewitness identification decisions on student-investigators. Undergraduates played the role of police investigators and interviewed student-witnesses who in Studies 1 and 2 had been shown either a good or poor view of the perpetrator or in Study 3 viewed either a Caucasian or an Asian criminal, in a video-taped crime. Based on information obtained from the witness, student-investigators then chose a suspect from a database containing information about potential suspects and rated the probability that their suspect was the culprit. Investigators then administered a photo lineup to witnesses, and re-rated the probability that their suspect was guilty. Student-investigators were highly influenced by eyewitness identification decisions, typically overestimating the information gained from the identification decision (except under conditions that led witnesses to be very accurate), and generally did not differentiate between accurate and inaccurate witnesses.

Attentional set-shifting tasks, consisting of multiple stages of discrimination learning, have been widely used in animals and humans to investigate behavioural flexibility. However, there are several learning criteria (e.g., 6-correct-choice-in-a-row, or 10-out- of-12-correct) by which a subject might be judged to have learned a discrimination. Furthermore, the currently frequentist approach does not provide a detailed analysis of individual performance. In this PhD study, a large set of archival data of rats performing a 7-stage intra-dimensional/extra-dimensional (ID/ED) attentional set- shifting task was analysed, using a novel Bayesian analytical approach, to estimate each rat's learning processes over its trials within the task. The analysis showed that the Bayesian learning criterion may be an appropriate alternative to the frequentist n- correct-in-a-row criterion for studying performance. The individual analysis of rats' behaviour using the Bayesian model also suggested that the rats responded according to a number of irrelevant spatial and perceptual information sources before the correct stimulus-reward association was established. The efficacy of the Bayesian analysis of individual subjects' behaviour and the appropriateness of the Bayesian learning criterion were also supported by the analysis of simulated data in which the behavioural choices in the task were generated by known rules. Additionally, the efficacy was also supported by analysis of human behaviour during an analogous human 7-stage attentional set-shifting task, where participants' detailed learning processes were collected based on their trial-by-trial oral report. Further, an extended Bayesian approach, which considers the effects of feedback (correct vs incorrect) after each response in the task, can even help infer whether individual human participants have formed an attentional set, which is crucial when applying the set-shifting task to an evaluation of cognitive flexibility. Overall, this study demonstrates that the Bayesian approach can yield additional information not available to the conventional frequentist approach. Future work could include refining the rat Bayesian model and the development of an adaptive trial design.

Esta pesquisa clínica se constitui a partir de interrogações resultantes do trabalho clínico realizado na esfera de atenção e cuidados psicossociais norteada pelos princípios daReforma Psiquiátrica Brasileira. É notável o recrudescimento das abordagens biológico-organocomportamentais dos fenômenos psíquicos na contemporaneidade. Verificamos que a construção do diagnóstico clínico e a direção do tratamento expressam, no contexto atual, o acirramento destas abordagens, impondo modos de concepção da loucura, e dos fenômenos psíquicos em geral, circunscritos às suas manifestações fenomênicas e comportamentais. Constatamos que o diagnóstico é efeito e raiz, a um só tempo, de distintas posições dircursivo-metodológicas circunscritas, nesta pesquisa, à posição do analista, na clínica psicanalítica,eà posição do comportamentalista, no que estamos chamando de clínica do comportamento (configurada por teorias e práticas do campo da medicina e da psicologia comportamentalistas). Vale destacar que este cenário de interpretação compreensiva biológico-comportamental pode trazer para o sujeito, na sua relação com o laço social, conseqüências desastrosas desde a inclusão em tratamentos desnecessários até a uma postura segregativa e adaptativa. O eixo do saber que o diagnóstico instaura atravessa todo este trabalho. Portanto, nosso objeto de pesquisa se inscreve na relação do sujeito com o saber na Psicanálise e na ciência contemporânea do comportamento, na qual circunscrevemos como paradigma o DSM-IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4 th ed.). Partimos da formação do sintoma em Freud como condição do saber do sujeito. Destacamos, em Lacan, o saber do real do sintoma no campo clínico psicanalítico frente ao saber nominalista do DSM e sua perspectiva empírico-pragmática. Ressaltamos o sujeito da ciência enquanto corolário da ciência moderna fundada num contexto de revolução de todo o saber. Lacan nos diz que este sujeito da ciência é o mesmo sujeito do inconsciente. No entanto, este sujeito, dimensão do real e do contingente, é forcluído pela ciência que estabelece a relação do sujeito com o saber pelo mecanismo da sutura.A psicanálise, entretanto, opera sobre o retorno do contingente, afirmando o sujeito em sua relação com o saber infinito do inconsciente. A dimensão do gozo e do desejo, nomes do saber, são articulados, portanto, como o real forcluído do saber da ciência. A construção de um caso clínico nos indica o trilhamento que inscreve a debilidade na impossibilidade radical de acesso ao saber. Verificamos haver correlação entre a operação da sutura exercida pela ciência do DSM e a colagem entre o sujeito e o saber construída pela debilidade. Donde hipotetizamos a equiparação entre a debilidade do sujeito e uma certa operação de debilização produzida pelo DSM. De uma posição de assujeitamento ao saber do Outro, pode-se notar como a transferência e seu dispositivo de acesso (o sujeito suposto saber) inscrevem-se como vias constituintes da materialidade significante do espaço pelo qual o sujeito débil pôde operar descolamentos do saber do Outro. / This clinical research has been constituted from questionings ensuing from the clinical work performed in the psychosocial attention and care sphere guided by the principles from the Brazilian Psychiatric Reform. It is remarkable the worsening of biological-organo-behavioral approaches of psychic phenomena in the contemporaneity. We have verified that the construction of clinical diagnosis and the direction of the treatment express in the current context the inciting of such approaches, imposing ways of the conception of madness and of psychic phenomena in general bounded to their phenomena and behavioral manifestations. We have verified that the diagnosis is effect and root, at once, and of distinctive discursive-methodological circumscribed positions, in this research, to the position of the analyst in the psychoanalysis clinic, and to the position of the behaviorist in what we have named clinical of behavior (configured by theories and practices in the field of medicine and behavioral psychology). Its worthwhile to highlight that this setting of comprehensive biological-behavioral interpretation may bring to the subject in its relations with the social links, disastrous consequences since the inclusion in unnecessary treatments up to a segregating and adapting posture. The axis of knowing which the diagnosis establishes cuts across all this work. Therefore, our subject of research is enrolled in the relation of the subject with the knowing in the psychoanalysis and in the contemporary science of behavior, in which we have bounded as paradigm the DSM-IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th ed.). We have started from the symptom formation in Freud as the condition of the knowing of the subject. We have highlighted in Lacan the knowing of the real of the symptom in the psycho-analytical field facing the nominalistic knowing of DSM and his empirical-pragmatic view. We have highlighted the subject of science as corollary of the modern science founded in a context of revolution of the knowing. Lacan tells us that this subject of science is the same subject of the unconscious. Nevertheless, this subject, dimension of real and contingent, is forcluded by the science which establishes the relation of the subject with the knowing by the suture mechanism. Although psychoanalysis operates around the return of the contingent, holding the subject in his relation with the unconscious infinite knowing. The dimension of joy and desire, names of knowing, are articulated therefore as the real forcluded of the knowing of science. The construction of a clinical case indicates to us to the treading which enrolls the debility in the radical impossibility of access to knowing. We have verified the existence of correlation between the suture operation played by the DSM science and the collage between subject and knowing built by debilities. From such we have hypothesized the equalization between the debility of the subject and of a certain operation of debility produced by the DSM. From a position of subjecting to the knowing of the Other, it may be noticed as a transference and its device of access (the supposed knowing subject) enrolled as constitutive ways to significant materiality of the space by which the debile subject may operate detached from knowing of the Other.

A utilização de apelos ao medo em mensagens persuasivas tem sido explorada, e se mostrado eficaz, nas questões que envolvem o tabagismo. No entanto, não se evidenciam muitos estudos relacionando mensagens persuasivas com apelo ao medo e sua influência na intenção de condução no trânsito, principalmente no Brasil. Considerando-se que acidentes de trânsito se apresentam como a décima causa de mortes no mundo e a primeira quando se avaliam pessoas com idade entre 15 e 39 anos, evidencia-se a importância de haver análises sobre este tema. Assim, o objetivo da pesquisa foi examinar os efeitos da utilização de apelos ao medo em mensagens persuasivas na intenção de condução no trânsito. Para o proposto, realizou-se uma pesquisa utilizando-se o método experimental, sendo o apelo ao medo da mensagem (alto ou baixo) analisado. Foram avaliadas duas campanhas realizadas pelo DETRAN/RS, nos diferentes níveis de apelo ao medo. A pesquisa, que também considerou o efeito mediador do apelo ao medo na intenção de condução, contou com 108 respostas legítimas. Os resultados explicitam que o apelo ao medo influencia a intenção de condução no trânsito e que os indivíduos percebem-se mais afeitos a um comportamento considerado como mais adequado no trânsito principalmente a partir do envolvimento de familiares em de acidentes de trânsito. Contudo, quando o próprio respondente envolveu-se em acidentes de trânsito, a diferença na intenção de condução no trânsito não é significativa. Identificou-se que as dimensões autoestima negativa relacionada ao ato de condução, autoeficácia e apelo ao medo apresentaram-se como as mais significativas para a explicação da intenção de condução no trânsito. E, por fim, confirmou-se que há uma forte relação na mediação realizada pelo apelo ao medo entre a mensagem persuasiva e a intenção de condução no trânsito. Esse achado evidencia que as mensagens persuasivas contendo apelo ao medo são impactantes, principalmente quando comparadas às mensagens sem apelo ao medo. O encontrado neste estudo pode ser utilizado como um subsídio ao desenvolvimento de campanhas de políticas públicas e poderão auxiliar na gestão de ações de marketing social relacionadas ao comportamento humano e social, direcionando de forma mais produtiva os recursos utilizados e retornando em consequências mais efetivas, no que tange ao comportamento no trânsito. Sugere-se que as campanhas, além de alertarem para os perigos iminentes do comportamento que se deseja coibir também apresentem recomendações, de maneira a estimular o sentimento de autoeficácia dos indivíduos, para que estes tenham ciência de que, ao adotar o sugerido pelas campanhas, estarão modificando o cenário atual. Outra possibilidade sugerida é a utilização de vídeos que envolvam a família ou sugiram a proximidade familiar – visto que os resultados apontam que há uma aparente intenção de condução mais prudente no trânsito quando familiares se envolveram em acidentes do que quando os próprios respondentes se envolveram. / Submitted by Ana Guimarães Pereira (agpereir@ucs.br) on 2015-09-18T18:46:11Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao Janine Cardoso Rocha.pdf: 1877451 bytes, checksum: 625e00aec2ae5505fa350e0ebce9893c (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2015-09-18T18:46:11Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao Janine Cardoso Rocha.pdf: 1877451 bytes, checksum: 625e00aec2ae5505fa350e0ebce9893c (MD5) / The use of fear appeals in persuasive messages has been explored and proven effective in the issues surrounding smoking. However, there are not many studies relating persuasive messages that appeal to fear and their influence on driving intention in traffic, mainly in Brazil. Considering that traffic accidents appear as the tenth leading cause of death worldwide and the first one when considering people aged between 15 and 39 years old, the importance of analyzing this topic is clear. Therefore, the objective of this research was to examine the effects of using fear appeals in persuasive messages for driving intention in traffic. With this purpose, a research using the experimental method was conducted, and the fear appeal in the message (high or low) was analyzed. We evaluated the different levels of fear appeal in two campaigns conducted by DETRAN/RS. The research, which also considered the mediating effect of fear appeal in driving intention, had 108 legitimate responses. The results clearly show that fear appeal influences driving intention, and that individuals perceive themselves more used to a behavior considered to be more adequate in traffic mainly after family members are involved in traffic accidents. Nevertheless, when the respondents themselves were involved in traffic accidents, the difference in driving intention in traffic is not significant. It was identified that the dimensions ‘negative self-esteem related to the act of driving’, ‘self-efficacy’ and ‘fear appeal’ are presented as the most significant in explaining driving intention in traffic. And finally, it was confirmed that there is a strong relationship in the mediation conducted by fear appeal between the persuasive message and driving intention in traffic. The findings of this study can be used as a support for the development of public policy campaigns and can assist in managing social marketing activities related to human and social behavior, directing resources more productively and therefore having more effective consequences, regarding behavior in traffic. It is suggested that the campaigns should also present recommendations, besides warning about the imminent danger related to the behavior which is being curbed, in order to stimulate the self-efficacy sense of individuals, so that they are aware that in adopting what is suggested by the campaigns they will be changing the current scenario. Another possibility suggested is the use of videos involving family or suggesting family closeness - as the results indicate there is a clear more prudent driving intention in traffic when family members were involved in accidents than when the respondents themselves were involved.

Esta pesquisa clínica se constitui a partir de interrogações resultantes do trabalho clínico realizado na esfera de atenção e cuidados psicossociais norteada pelos princípios daReforma Psiquiátrica Brasileira. É notável o recrudescimento das abordagens biológico-organocomportamentais dos fenômenos psíquicos na contemporaneidade. Verificamos que a construção do diagnóstico clínico e a direção do tratamento expressam, no contexto atual, o acirramento destas abordagens, impondo modos de concepção da loucura, e dos fenômenos psíquicos em geral, circunscritos às suas manifestações fenomênicas e comportamentais. Constatamos que o diagnóstico é efeito e raiz, a um só tempo, de distintas posições dircursivo-metodológicas circunscritas, nesta pesquisa, à posição do analista, na clínica psicanalítica,eà posição do comportamentalista, no que estamos chamando de clínica do comportamento (configurada por teorias e práticas do campo da medicina e da psicologia comportamentalistas). Vale destacar que este cenário de interpretação compreensiva biológico-comportamental pode trazer para o sujeito, na sua relação com o laço social, conseqüências desastrosas desde a inclusão em tratamentos desnecessários até a uma postura segregativa e adaptativa. O eixo do saber que o diagnóstico instaura atravessa todo este trabalho. Portanto, nosso objeto de pesquisa se inscreve na relação do sujeito com o saber na Psicanálise e na ciência contemporânea do comportamento, na qual circunscrevemos como paradigma o DSM-IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4 th ed.). Partimos da formação do sintoma em Freud como condição do saber do sujeito. Destacamos, em Lacan, o saber do real do sintoma no campo clínico psicanalítico frente ao saber nominalista do DSM e sua perspectiva empírico-pragmática. Ressaltamos o sujeito da ciência enquanto corolário da ciência moderna fundada num contexto de revolução de todo o saber. Lacan nos diz que este sujeito da ciência é o mesmo sujeito do inconsciente. No entanto, este sujeito, dimensão do real e do contingente, é forcluído pela ciência que estabelece a relação do sujeito com o saber pelo mecanismo da sutura.A psicanálise, entretanto, opera sobre o retorno do contingente, afirmando o sujeito em sua relação com o saber infinito do inconsciente. A dimensão do gozo e do desejo, nomes do saber, são articulados, portanto, como o real forcluído do saber da ciência. A construção de um caso clínico nos indica o trilhamento que inscreve a debilidade na impossibilidade radical de acesso ao saber. Verificamos haver correlação entre a operação da sutura exercida pela ciência do DSM e a colagem entre o sujeito e o saber construída pela debilidade. Donde hipotetizamos a equiparação entre a debilidade do sujeito e uma certa operação de debilização produzida pelo DSM. De uma posição de assujeitamento ao saber do Outro, pode-se notar como a transferência e seu dispositivo de acesso (o sujeito suposto saber) inscrevem-se como vias constituintes da materialidade significante do espaço pelo qual o sujeito débil pôde operar descolamentos do saber do Outro. / This clinical research has been constituted from questionings ensuing from the clinical work performed in the psychosocial attention and care sphere guided by the principles from the Brazilian Psychiatric Reform. It is remarkable the worsening of biological-organo-behavioral approaches of psychic phenomena in the contemporaneity. We have verified that the construction of clinical diagnosis and the direction of the treatment express in the current context the inciting of such approaches, imposing ways of the conception of madness and of psychic phenomena in general bounded to their phenomena and behavioral manifestations. We have verified that the diagnosis is effect and root, at once, and of distinctive discursive-methodological circumscribed positions, in this research, to the position of the analyst in the psychoanalysis clinic, and to the position of the behaviorist in what we have named clinical of behavior (configured by theories and practices in the field of medicine and behavioral psychology). Its worthwhile to highlight that this setting of comprehensive biological-behavioral interpretation may bring to the subject in its relations with the social links, disastrous consequences since the inclusion in unnecessary treatments up to a segregating and adapting posture. The axis of knowing which the diagnosis establishes cuts across all this work. Therefore, our subject of research is enrolled in the relation of the subject with the knowing in the psychoanalysis and in the contemporary science of behavior, in which we have bounded as paradigm the DSM-IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th ed.). We have started from the symptom formation in Freud as the condition of the knowing of the subject. We have highlighted in Lacan the knowing of the real of the symptom in the psycho-analytical field facing the nominalistic knowing of DSM and his empirical-pragmatic view. We have highlighted the subject of science as corollary of the modern science founded in a context of revolution of the knowing. Lacan tells us that this subject of science is the same subject of the unconscious. Nevertheless, this subject, dimension of real and contingent, is forcluded by the science which establishes the relation of the subject with the knowing by the suture mechanism. Although psychoanalysis operates around the return of the contingent, holding the subject in his relation with the unconscious infinite knowing. The dimension of joy and desire, names of knowing, are articulated therefore as the real forcluded of the knowing of science. The construction of a clinical case indicates to us to the treading which enrolls the debility in the radical impossibility of access to knowing. We have verified the existence of correlation between the suture operation played by the DSM science and the collage between subject and knowing built by debilities. From such we have hypothesized the equalization between the debility of the subject and of a certain operation of debility produced by the DSM. From a position of subjecting to the knowing of the Other, it may be noticed as a transference and its device of access (the supposed knowing subject) enrolled as constitutive ways to significant materiality of the space by which the debile subject may operate detached from knowing of the Other.

A utilização de apelos ao medo em mensagens persuasivas tem sido explorada, e se mostrado eficaz, nas questões que envolvem o tabagismo. No entanto, não se evidenciam muitos estudos relacionando mensagens persuasivas com apelo ao medo e sua influência na intenção de condução no trânsito, principalmente no Brasil. Considerando-se que acidentes de trânsito se apresentam como a décima causa de mortes no mundo e a primeira quando se avaliam pessoas com idade entre 15 e 39 anos, evidencia-se a importância de haver análises sobre este tema. Assim, o objetivo da pesquisa foi examinar os efeitos da utilização de apelos ao medo em mensagens persuasivas na intenção de condução no trânsito. Para o proposto, realizou-se uma pesquisa utilizando-se o método experimental, sendo o apelo ao medo da mensagem (alto ou baixo) analisado. Foram avaliadas duas campanhas realizadas pelo DETRAN/RS, nos diferentes níveis de apelo ao medo. A pesquisa, que também considerou o efeito mediador do apelo ao medo na intenção de condução, contou com 108 respostas legítimas. Os resultados explicitam que o apelo ao medo influencia a intenção de condução no trânsito e que os indivíduos percebem-se mais afeitos a um comportamento considerado como mais adequado no trânsito principalmente a partir do envolvimento de familiares em de acidentes de trânsito. Contudo, quando o próprio respondente envolveu-se em acidentes de trânsito, a diferença na intenção de condução no trânsito não é significativa. Identificou-se que as dimensões autoestima negativa relacionada ao ato de condução, autoeficácia e apelo ao medo apresentaram-se como as mais significativas para a explicação da intenção de condução no trânsito. E, por fim, confirmou-se que há uma forte relação na mediação realizada pelo apelo ao medo entre a mensagem persuasiva e a intenção de condução no trânsito. Esse achado evidencia que as mensagens persuasivas contendo apelo ao medo são impactantes, principalmente quando comparadas às mensagens sem apelo ao medo. O encontrado neste estudo pode ser utilizado como um subsídio ao desenvolvimento de campanhas de políticas públicas e poderão auxiliar na gestão de ações de marketing social relacionadas ao comportamento humano e social, direcionando de forma mais produtiva os recursos utilizados e retornando em consequências mais efetivas, no que tange ao comportamento no trânsito. Sugere-se que as campanhas, além de alertarem para os perigos iminentes do comportamento que se deseja coibir também apresentem recomendações, de maneira a estimular o sentimento de autoeficácia dos indivíduos, para que estes tenham ciência de que, ao adotar o sugerido pelas campanhas, estarão modificando o cenário atual. Outra possibilidade sugerida é a utilização de vídeos que envolvam a família ou sugiram a proximidade familiar – visto que os resultados apontam que há uma aparente intenção de condução mais prudente no trânsito quando familiares se envolveram em acidentes do que quando os próprios respondentes se envolveram. / The use of fear appeals in persuasive messages has been explored and proven effective in the issues surrounding smoking. However, there are not many studies relating persuasive messages that appeal to fear and their influence on driving intention in traffic, mainly in Brazil. Considering that traffic accidents appear as the tenth leading cause of death worldwide and the first one when considering people aged between 15 and 39 years old, the importance of analyzing this topic is clear. Therefore, the objective of this research was to examine the effects of using fear appeals in persuasive messages for driving intention in traffic. With this purpose, a research using the experimental method was conducted, and the fear appeal in the message (high or low) was analyzed. We evaluated the different levels of fear appeal in two campaigns conducted by DETRAN/RS. The research, which also considered the mediating effect of fear appeal in driving intention, had 108 legitimate responses. The results clearly show that fear appeal influences driving intention, and that individuals perceive themselves more used to a behavior considered to be more adequate in traffic mainly after family members are involved in traffic accidents. Nevertheless, when the respondents themselves were involved in traffic accidents, the difference in driving intention in traffic is not significant. It was identified that the dimensions ‘negative self-esteem related to the act of driving’, ‘self-efficacy’ and ‘fear appeal’ are presented as the most significant in explaining driving intention in traffic. And finally, it was confirmed that there is a strong relationship in the mediation conducted by fear appeal between the persuasive message and driving intention in traffic. The findings of this study can be used as a support for the development of public policy campaigns and can assist in managing social marketing activities related to human and social behavior, directing resources more productively and therefore having more effective consequences, regarding behavior in traffic. It is suggested that the campaigns should also present recommendations, besides warning about the imminent danger related to the behavior which is being curbed, in order to stimulate the self-efficacy sense of individuals, so that they are aware that in adopting what is suggested by the campaigns they will be changing the current scenario. Another possibility suggested is the use of videos involving family or suggesting family closeness - as the results indicate there is a clear more prudent driving intention in traffic when family members were involved in accidents than when the respondents themselves were involved.