Doctoral Dissertation Research in DRMS: The Impact of Sensation Seeking and Cultural Orientation on the Effects of Fear Appeal Messages -- A Four-Country Study.

利用恐惧呼吁来增强对风险的感知并改变态度和行为一直是公共卫生从业者的常见做法。尽管研究表明恐惧诉求信息有效，但还没有具体的研究系统地研究特定受众，特别是高感觉和低感觉寻求者是如何被恐惧诉求信息说服或不被说服的。感觉寻求是一种人格特征，是一个人对新奇感觉和体验的需求，以及为了这些体验而愿意冒险的意愿。在美国进行的恐惧诉求研究，主要由Witte和她的同事进行，主要集中在使用身体威胁作为恐惧诉求信息的刺激，而很少强调社会威胁的使用。没有重点了解在文化取向上更集体主义而不是个人主义的社区中，社会威胁可能是如何被感知的。这项研究的主要目标是评估感觉寻求和文化取向如何影响年轻人处理以防止性传播感染为重点的信息的方式。这项研究的发现将有助于加强恐惧诉求理论，特别是维特的扩展并行处理模型。这些发现将有助于从业者改进公共教育策略的知识。

The use of fear appeals to enhance perceptions of risk and to modify attitudes and behaviors has been a common practice among public health practitioners. Although studies have shown that fear appeal messages work, no specific studies have systematically examined how specific audiences, particularly high and low sensation seekers, are persuaded or not persuaded by fear appeal messages. Sensation seeking is a personality trait, an individual's need for novel sensations and experiences and the willingness to take risks for the sake of those experiences. Fear appeal studies conducted in the U.S., primarily by Witte and her colleagues have focused solely on the use of physical threat as the stimulus of the fear appeal message with little emphasis placed on the use of social threat. There has not been a focus on understanding how social threat may be perceived in communities that are more collectivistic, as opposed to individualistic, in their cultural orientation. The primary goal of this research is to assess how sensation seeking and cultural orientation influence the way young adults process messages that focus on preventing a sexually transmitted infection. Findings from this research will help strengthen the theory of fear appeals, particularly Witte's extended parallel processing model. The findings will contribute to knowledge that practitioners can use to improve to public education strategies.