Framing Antismoking Message –
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message framing by examining how individuals process gain and loss-framed
antismoking information, and what are their concurrent cognitive responses and affective
reactions to the messages. In the literature review, we will first briefly review message
framing theories and the related studies on health and antismoking messages. We will
also review a recent theoretical model of fear appeal theory, the Extended Parallel Process
Model, and how it is related to people’s processing of loss-framed messages. Lastly, we
will discuss Theory of Reasoned Action, from which we developed the framework for
think aloud protocol analysis.
Literature Review
Message Framing
The message framing postulate has been used as an approach to design health
messages by emphasizing the gains or losses related to certain health behaviors. Gain-
framed messages emphasize the advantages or benefits of certain behaviors or the
likelihood that one would gain by adopting these behaviors. Loss-framed messages
highlight the disadvantages or costs, or the odds that individuals will lose or not be
successful in taking certain actions (Meyerowitz & Chaiken, 1987; Mitchell, 2001;
Stephenson & Witte, 2000). Framing is based on Kahneman and Tversky’s prospect
theory (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979; Tversky & Kahneman, 1981), which at first was
aimed to clarify people’s decisions for economic activities under risk situations. The
prospect theory suggests that people are risk averse when presented choices involving
gains, and are risk seeking when presented choices involving losses, even though the gain
and loss options are actually representations of the same thing (Stephenson & Witte,
2000).
Convention