Alcohol, Risk Communication For

The Protection Motivation Model

Landmark research on protection motivation theory (PMT) by Ronald W. Rogers provides the theoretical basis for many social marketing campaigns, including those aimed at curbing excessive alcohol use. PMT outlines the conditions under which individuals are motivated to modify behaviors to protect their own health. According to this model, people are most likely to modify unhealthy behaviors when (a) the perceived severity of the health threat is high, (b) they believe they are vulnerable to the negative outcomes of health behaviors, (c) changing behaviors is likely to be very effective at mitigating the perceived health threat, (d) the cost of changing health behaviors is low, and (e) they believe strongly that they are capable of changing their current behaviors.

Anti–alcohol abuse social marketing campaigns based on the protection motivation model generally rely on fear appeals, underscoring the negative consequences of excessive alcohol use and binge drinking. Campaigns of this kind have been run in countries around the world, including in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, and the United States. While these campaigns have been successful at communicating the threats associated with drinking, researchers indicate that they have been less successful at helping individuals realize that they are capable of avoiding dangerous drinking behaviors, largely because the campaigns provide little advice on avoiding situations that lead to dangerous drinking behaviors.

The communications literature indicates mixed results on the effect of fear appeals. In a recent meta-analysis of health communications message tactics, researchers found significant differences between the health intentions of men and women who received messages focused on the personal consequences of health behaviors: Men responded most positively to unemotional messages, while women responded best to emotional messages. Similarly, vivid messages about personal consequences appear to increase health intentions for white audiences, while dramatically decreasing them for nonwhite audiences. These findings indicate that anti-alcohol communications may be more effective when targeted to specific groups.

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