Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Psychology / Laura A. Brannon / Two studies address the serious problem of college student binge drinking. Both studies identify factors that improve the effectiveness of public service announcements (PSAs) encouraging responsible drinking presented through a website simulation. Study 1 tested four levels of Message Personalization (i.e., extent to which the PSA targets important aspects of the individual's personality) by comparing the effectiveness of messages matched to the person's Big Five personality traits, their actual self-schema, their ideal self-schema, or a non-personalized control message. Matching to actual self-schema has been found to be effective in past research. However, it was expected that the more thoroughly personalized the message, the more effective it would be. Results revealed that in no instance was the most thoroughly personalized condition (Big Five matched) or the alternate way of matching to schema (ideal self-schema) more effective than the actual self-schema matching. When designing PSAs, there appears to be a threshold of personalization. Research related to testing PSAs discouraging binge drinking should continue to pursue self-schema matching rather than the more complicated Big Five matching. Study 2 tested Person Matching (i.e., whether the PSA matches the person's self-schema type or not) and two types of Context Matching (i.e., whether the PSA matches the Topic or Values of the message context) to determine their relative influence on the effectiveness of the PSA. It was expected that PSAs matched to any of these factors would be more effective than messages not matched, and that Person Matching would be more influential on the PSAs effectiveness than the two types of context matching. Person Matching reduced intentions to drink while staying in/home, but Topic Matching reduced intentions to drink when going out, suggesting that different factors are important for PSAs targeting drinking behavior in different locations. The interaction of Topic Matching and Values Matching indicate that the PSA should not match the message context too closely. Again, there appears to be a matching threshold; increasing the number of factors the message matches does not increase message effectiveness, possibly because it makes the message too redundant with the webpage content.

The world is experiencing a rapid rise in chronic health problems, which places an enormous burden on health care services. Modifiable health behaviors such as physical inactivity are largely responsible for this high prevalence and incidence of chronic diseases. Message tailoring is a well-established approach for constructing health communication and has been shown to increase the persuasiveness of messages in the promotion of healthy behaviors. Message framing is an effective strategy that has been well-studied in psychology over the past 20-plus years across a breadth of health-related behaviors but has received little attention in the nursing research literature. Based on prospect theory, temporal construal theory, and motivational orientation theories, the present study examined how two individual differences factors - consideration of future consequences (CFC) and motivational orientation - combine to moderate temporal proximity and valence framing effects on intentions to increase physical activity. A mail survey was conducted using Dillman's Tailored Design Method. Two hundred and eighteen adults with type 2 diabetes were randomly assigned to receive one of four versions of a health message aimed to increase regular physical activity. Messages were framed using a 2 (immediate- vs. distal-framed) x 2 (gain- vs. loss-framed) design. After reading the message, participants rated their intention to increase physical activity. They also completed a measure of CFC and two measures of motivational orientation. Participants who read a message with a temporal proximity or valence frame congruent with their CFC or motivational orientation, respectively, did not show greater intentions to increase physical activity when compared to those who read a health message that was incongruent with these individual differences. Plausible explanations for these negative results are considered. Several interesting findings emerged from supplemental analyses. For instance, participants who perceived the health message as more believable tended to have greater intentions to increase physical activity. Suggestions for future research applying message congruence to promote complex health behaviors in at-risk populations are given. Implications of message framing and other message tailoring strategies for nursing research, education, and practice are discussed.