Four Perspectives on . . .
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(Waldron & Cegala, 1992) might be adapted to address this problem. For example, asking
message recipients to self-report their feelings while reading through a printed message would
provide a much richer picture of the affective impact of message components than a post-
message checklist. A similar end could be achieved via stimulated recall procedures in which
subjects view a commercial advertisement once, then review it, stopping the tape and describing
their affective reactions as they occurred. Although the design employed in the current study is
the most modest of these alternatives, it demonstrates the utility of the message component
approach for addressing questions of emotion dynamics and persuasion.
Conclusion
The primary contributions of this study to the literature on threat appeals can be
summarized along the following lines. First, when presented with a health-related threat
message, basic neurobiological differences predispose some individuals, and not others, to fear
responses of greater intensity. There no evidence that these same differences influence the
duration of that emotional response. Second, both the acceleration and velocity aspects of
emotion can produce positive changes in the likelihood that individuals would take the health-
protective action advocated by the message. However, fear deceleration possesses little, if any,
suasory power. Third, there is no indication that the research designs necessary to assessing
message-induced changes in emotion suffer from reactive measurement. Both theoretically and
methodologically, these findings advance our understanding of the relationship between emotion
and persuasion.
Convention