Fear Appeals

Fear appeals are messages designed to scare people by describing a threat that is both personally relevant and serious. Fear appeals are one type of motivational appeal, which can be broadly defined as a message intended to increase an individual's drive to engage in a particular behavior. Virtually any human emotion or need can serve as the basis of a motivational appeal. Examples of emotional appeals are numerous and include appeals to pity and guilt (for example, the “Feed the Children” campaign), humor appeals (for example, Fetman, Garland, & Associates' “Life's Short. Get a Divorce” billboard), and appeals to pride and patriotism (for example, the 2008 John McCain presidential campaign's “Palin Power” or “Country First” slogans). Further, biological needs might be used to capture people's attention via sex appeals (for example, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals' “I'd Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur” campaign), social needs can be targeted using bandwagon appeals (for example, Microsoft's “I'm a PC” ad), and esteem needs might be targeted by ingratiation appeals (for example, Allstate Insurance's advertised “stand” that “you deserve more than your 15 minutes of fame”).

Though these and other types of motivational appeals are popular in the United States, fear appeals are among the most commonly used and most thoroughly studied type of motivational appeal, and the issues they raise are directly relevant to effectively communicating health and environmental risks. Fear appeals are often marked by their use of vivid language (for example, “You can see the path of the bullet dragging bone fragments from the skull across the brain”), personalistic language (for example, “If it can happen to me, it can happen to you”), or graphic images (for example, police photos, X-rays, or other pictures of injuries and disease). A classic example of a fear appeal message is The Partnership for a Drug-Free America's “Fried Egg” drug prevention campaign that originally aired in the mid-1980s (that is, “This is your brain. This is drugs. This is your brain on drugs. Any questions?” accompanied by a frying egg image). Another, more recent example is Health Canada's smoking prevention messages on cigarette packs (for example, “Smoking causes lung cancer,” “Tobacco smoke hurts babies,” and “Tobacco use can make you impotent”—all accompanied by full-color, graphic images and often with strategy tips to help people quit smoking).

Given their pervasiveness and potential effectiveness in changing people's behavior to reduced exposure to risks, this entry focuses specifically on fear appeals. The next section will contain a brief introduction and overview of early fear appeal theories and research, followed by an in-depth discussion of the extended parallel process model (EPPM), which superseded these earlier theories by explaining both the successes and failures of fear appeal messages. The entry will conclude with a few important recommendations for those who [Page 296]wish to use fear appeal messages more effectively or study them in more depth.