Master of Arts / Department of Communication Studies, Theatre, and Dance / William Schenck-Hamlin / According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, overweight and obesity rates in the United States continue to increase. And yet, despite their resources to encourage healthy lifestyles, college campuses reflect the national trend. Colleges and universities often utilize health campaign strategies such as social norms marketing and peer health education to encourage campus-wide health initiatives. However, based on an application of effective health communication attributes, both strategies demonstrate limitations that must be addressed in future collegiate health campaign approaches. I analyzed the effectiveness of adopting an induced hypocrisy health campaign to encourage nutrition. The induced hypocrisy paradigm has resulted in successful behavioral change by having participants create a pro-attitudinal message. Then, participants are reminded of their past failure to engage in the behaviors they advocated. It was hypothesized that hypocritical subjects would purchase more nutrition bars than subjects in any of the other conditions. The results indicate that, although more hypocritical subjects purchased more nutrition bars than subjects in the other conditions, the findings were not found to be statistically significant. Interpretations of the study findings as well as implications for future nutrition campaign initiatives are discussed.

Aronson, E., Fried, C., Stone, J., (1991) ont cherché à mettre en place une procédure permettant aux acteurs de la vie sociale de promouvoir de nouveaux comportements socialement souhaitables, comme l’utilisation du préservatif. C’est ainsi que va naître le paradigme de l’hypocrisie induite. Ce paradigme résulte de l’enchaînement de deux facteurs : l’engagement dans le comportement pro-normatif et, le rappel et la saillance des transgressions récentes passées. L’articulation des deux phases provoque un état de dissonance qui va générer une modification du comportement dans le sens du discours pro-normatif. Cette thèse a cherché à démontrer de quelle manière ce paradigme de l’hypocrisie induite est le plus efficace en termes de modification du comportement : en restant anonyme ou en déclinant son identité. Fried (1998), identifie les sujets avec leurs transgressions en déclinant leur identité afin d'augmenter leur dissonance. Toutefois, les résultats obtenus ont démontré le contraire. Cette thèse, présente quatre expérimentations, reprenant la manipulation du facteur « déclinaison de son identité » dans le paradigme de l’hypocrisie induite, lors des deux phases. Les résultats obtenus répliquent en termes de changement de comportement, ceux obtenus par Fried. L’effet d’hypocrisie disparaît lorsque les sujets sont identifiés avec leur rappel des transgressions. Il résulte de nos travaux que la formule la plus efficace à l’obtention de l’effet d’hypocrisie est celle combinant un prêche et un rappel des transgressions anonymes. De plus, la dissonance éveillée suite à la manipulation d’hypocrisie peut être réduite par d’autres voies que la modification du comportement. / Aronson, E., Fried, C., Stone, J., (1991) sought to establish a procedure allowing the actors of society to promote new socially desirable behaviors such as condom use. Thus is born the paradigm of the induced hypocrisy.This paradigm results from a chain of two factors: engagement in pro-normative behavior and recall and salience recent past transgressions. The articulation of the two phases causes a state of dissonance that will generate a change in behavior in the direction of pro-normative discourse. In this thesis, we sought to demonstrate how the paradigm of the induced hypocrisy is the most efficient in terms of behavior modification: remaining anonymous or stating his identity. In a study done by Fried (1998), subjects are identified with their transgressions by declining their identity. This was to increase dissonance. However, the results have shown otherwise.This thesis presents four experiments, taking one hand manipulation of the factor "version of its identity" in the experimental procedure paradigm induced hypocrisy, not only for the transgression phase but also in the phase of preaching. And secondly, introducing new ways of reducing cognitive dissonance.The results obtained replicate in terms of behavior change, those obtained by Fried. The hypocrisy effect disappears when subjects are identified with their recall of transgressions. It is clear from our work that the most effective formula to obtain the effect of hypocrisy is by combining a sermon and a reminder anonymous transgressions. Our studies also show that the dissonance aroused from manipulating hypocrisy can be reduced by means other than behavior modification.

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L’objectif de cette thèse est de concevoir une démarche d’intervention pour promouvoir la réduction du gaspillage alimentaire reposant sur l’hypocrisie induite semble. Cette procédure d’induction de dissonance articule une phase de saillance normative et une phase de rappel des transgressions. Si l’hypocrisie induite est interprétée à la lumière de la théorie de la consistance de Soi, nous reprenons à notre compte les propos de Vallacher (1992), selon lesquelles la nature de l’action, c’est-à-dire les significations qu’un individu attribue à ces comportements, est susceptible d’influencer le processus de dissonance. La théorie des niveaux de construit, incluant l’identification de l’action, a été mobilisée pour appréhender les significations accordées à des conduites pro-sociales. Plus précisément, nous avons examiné l’influence des niveaux de construit, sur les comportements de soumission obtenus, selon que la phase de saillance normative sera suivie ou non d’un rappel des transgressions. Dans une première expérience, nous avons testé l’applicabilité de l’hypocrisie induite pour promouvoir la réduction du gaspillage alimentaire. Les deux expériences suivantes examinent l’influence des niveaux de construits dans l’hypocrisie induite. Enfin, une recherche-action reposant sur des interventions de type face-à-face auprès des ménages a été mise en œuvre et integre des mesures comportementales effectives. Nos résultats suggèrent que l’hypocrisie induite est à même de promouvoir des changements de comportements effectifs de réduction du gaspillage, mais que ces changements dépendent des significations accordées à cette conduite pro-sociale / Our research aims at conceiving an intervention process to promote food waste reduction in households. Considering the characteristics of food waste, induced hypocrisy appeared adapted to lead to behavioural changes. This sequential procedure of dissonance induction articulates two steps: preaching publicly a socially desirable behaviour (normative salience) and remembering one’s counter-normative behaviours (mindfulness). Though induced hyprocrisy is interpreted in the light of self-consistency theory, we make ours Vallacher’s propositions (1992), according to which the nature of the action, that is the meanings attributed to these behaviours by an individual, is likely to influence arousal and dissonance reduction. This research relies on construal level theory, including action identification, to understand the meanings given to pro-social behaviours. More specifically, we tested the influence of construal levels, manipulated during the stage of normative salience, on the compliance behaviours thus obtained, whether the normative salience stage be or not followed by mindfulness. In a first study, we applied induced hypocrisy to a previously unstudied behavioural area: the encouragement of food waste reduction. The next two experiments, conducted in a laboratory, examined the influence of construal levels in induced hypocrisy. Relying on these studies, we conducted a field experiment, which used effective behavioural measures, based on face-to-face interventions in the households. Our results suggest that induced hypocrisy may encourage individuals to actually reduce food waste, but that these changes depend on the meanings they grant to this pro-social behaviour