BACKGROUND: Public health campaigns have often used persuasive techniques to promote healthy behaviors but the use of persuasion by doctors is controversial. We sought to examine older women\'s perspectives.
METHODS: We conducted semi-structured interviews with 20 community-dwelling older women from the Baltimore metropolitan area. We asked whether participants thought it was ethically appropriate for doctors to try to persuade patients and explored their rationales. We probed about commonly used persuasive techniques and two example decisional contexts-stopping mammograms and moving out of one\'s house after multiple falls. We used qualitative thematic analysis to code the transcripts and summarized results into major themes.
RESULTS: We found mixed views on the ethical appropriateness of persuasion (theme 1); supporters of persuasion were motivated by the potential benefit to patients\' health, whereas opponents thought patients should be the ultimate decision-makers. Perspectives depended on the persuasive technique (theme 2), where emotional appeals elicited the most negative reactions while use of facts and patient stories were viewed more positively. Perspectives also varied by the decisional context (theme 3), where higher severity and certainty of harm influenced participants to be more accepting of persuasion. Participants suggested alternative communication approaches to persuasion (theme 4) that emphasized respect for patients.
CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest that the type of persuasive technique and the decisional context are important considerations in the ethical debate around the use of persuasion. Limiting the use of persuasion to high-stakes decisions and using facts and patient stories rather than emotional appeals are likely more acceptable.

Psychological interventions tend to be confrontational in nature. That is, when psychologists seek to bring about change in beliefs, attitudes, or behaviors, they often do so by directly confronting the presumed barrier to change. Confrontational approaches can be effective, but suffer from limitations to their efficacy, such as the possibility of arousing discomfort or defensiveness from the recipient. The current piece seeks to highlight an alternative strategy that we refer to as bypassing, which refers to a general approach for bringing about behavior change without confrontation. Leveraging insights from research on misinformation, stereotypes, and persuasion, we present evidence that non-confrontational approaches can be as effective, if not more so, than the traditional confrontational paradigm.

UNASSIGNED: Social norm appeals are effective in promoting sustainable majority behavior but could backfire when the target behavior is only performed by a minority of people. However, emphasizing that an increasing number of people have started engaging in the behavior or that the majority approve the behavior might prevent such negative effects. However, only a few studies have investigated the combination of descriptive minority and injunctive majority social norm appeals, with inconsistent results. Some studies of minority behavior suggest that the characteristics of recipients might determine the inconsistent results regarding the impact of minority social norm appeals and that social norm appeals could have a greater impact on individuals with weaker environment related dispositions.
UNASSIGNED: Two two-wave studies investigated how descriptive minority appeals, injunctive majority appeals, and their combination can be used to motivate sustainable minority behavior and what role environment related dispositions play in this context. In the first part, perceived social norms, environment related dispositions, behavioral intentions, and pre-attitudes were measured. Two weeks later, respondents participated in a 3 (descriptive social norm appeal: static vs. dynamic vs. absent) × 2 (injunctive majority social norm appeal: present vs. absent) between-subjects experiment and watched an explainer video on voluntary carbon offsets that included various social norm appeals.
UNASSIGNED: In both studies, we found that social norm appeals influenced perceived social norms. However, persuasive effects were only observed in the first study, and an injunctive majority appeal increased persuasive outcomes, but there were no differences between the descriptive conditions and no differences in their impact depending on individuals\' environment related dispositions in either study.
UNASSIGNED: A single exposure may be insufficient to exert persuasive effects and the change in perceived social norms may first need to be internalized. In online explainer videos, the effects of social norm appeals could be amplified by algorithm-based suggestions and when social norm appeals draw attention to norm-conforming content. However, further research is required on the long-term effects and their possible amplification via social media.

Risk communication involves conveying potential risks to the audience. It\'s crucial for shaping behavior and influencing individual well-being. Previous research predominantly focused on verbal and written aspects of risk communication, with less emphasis on nonverbal cues like vocal tone. Addressing this gap, our study explores the impact of competent and warm vocal tones on risk communication across two risky decision-making paradigms, the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART) in Study 1 and the Gambling Task in Study 2. Results show that competent and warm vocal tones are more persuasive than neutral tones, and their effectiveness varies in different decision-making scenarios. Additionally, participants\' perceived competence and warmth of vocal tones mediate this persuasiveness. This study enhances our theoretical understanding of risk communication by incorporating the impact of vocal tones. Also, it carries practical implications for marketers and practitioners, demonstrating the importance of using voice as a medium to persuade in real-world scenarios.

UNASSIGNED: We examined the effectiveness of three different messages for persuading individuals to get vaccinated against COVID-19, and the role that emotions play in persuasion.
UNASSIGNED: Four hundred-thirty-six participants reported their concern about the COVID-19 pandemic and confidence/hesitancy toward vaccines. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three text conditions: (1) self-interest: a persuasive message that focused on how much of a \"serious threat COVID-19 is to you,\" and to get vaccinated to \"protect yourself\"; (2) self-interest + altruistic: a persuasive message that focused on the \"threat to you and your community\" and to get vaccinated to \"protect you and your loved ones\"; (3) self-interest + altruistic + normal: a persuasive message that included (2) but added \"This is the only way we can get back to a normal life.\"; and, (4) a baseline control: no text. After reading, participants reported their emotions toward COVID-19 vaccines and their willingness to get vaccinated.
UNASSIGNED: Individuals in the self-interest + altruistic + normal condition were more willing to get vaccinated compared to the control condition and self-interest + altruistic condition. However, there were no differences in willingness between the self-interest + altruistic + normal condition and the self-interest condition. Moreover, emotions mediated relations between vaccine confidence/hesitancy and willingness.
UNASSIGNED: A message that focuses on \"getting back to normal\" can achieve important public health action by increasing vaccine uptake to protect the population. Future work is needed across multiple countries and contexts (i.e., non-pandemic) to assess message effectiveness.

This study was designed to determine whether participation in a single, 1-hour focus group would spur a change in health-related behavior. All the respondents were teachers who had participated in a focus group designed to learn about teachers\' understanding that voice is a working tool. In the discussions, health-related behaviors were discussed as ways to deal with possible vocal strain or injury. Two months later, a follow-up survey was distributed to these participants asking them if they recalled the discussion and if they had sought out more information and/or had changed their vocal behavior due to their participation in the focus group. The qualitative data shows that the majority of these respondents both recalled the messages and had engaged in some type of health-related behavior change due to their participation in the focus group. Behavior change included such modifications as drinking more water and use of voice-amplification equipment in the classroom. Implications of this finding are discussed.

In three studies, we investigated the role of linguistic features characterizing texts aiming to mobilize others. In Study 1 (N = 728), participants produced a leaflet either mobilizing others to engage in an action or expressing their thoughts about that action, and evaluated how action-oriented their text was. Mobilizing texts included more verbs and concrete words, and the presence of these linguistic characteristics was positively linked to participants\' evaluations of their messages as action-oriented. In Studies 2 and 3 (N = 557 and N = 556), independent groups of participants evaluated texts produced in Study 1. Readers\' perceptions of texts as action-oriented were associated with the same linguistic features as in Study 1 and further positively linked to perceived message effectiveness (Study 2) and behavioral intention (Study 3). The studies reveal how encoding and decoding of verbs and concrete words serve as distinct persuasive tools in calls to action.

Commentators have recommended that forensic scientists\' reports contain various disclosures to facilitate comprehension. However, little research has explored whether following best practice recommendations for disclosure impacts on receivers\' impressions of the evidence. We examined whether forensic science reports that are more compliant with these best practice recommendations reduced overvaluing of the evidence and sensitized legal and community decision-makers to evidence quality. Across three experiments, 240 legal practitioners/trainees and 566 community decision-makers were presented with a fingerprint or footwear report that was either compliant or non-compliant with best practice recommendations. Participants were then asked to make evaluations and decisions based on the report. We found mixed effects of report compliance. Report compliance affected community participant\'s evaluations of the persuasiveness of the evidence but had limited impact on the judgments of legal practitioners/trainees. When presented with compliant reports, we found that community participants regarded unknown reliability evidence as less reliable and less persuasive than high reliability evidence, suggesting disclosures helped reduce overvaluing of the evidence and create sensitivity to differences in evidence quality. These results suggest compliance with reporting recommendations does affect community impressions, while only minimally influencing legal impressions of forensic science evidence. The costs and/or benefits of this outcome require further examination.

Misinformation about mRNA vaccination is a barrier in the global fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, authorities often rely on text-based refutations as a countermeasure. In two experiments (N = 2,444), text-based refutations effectively reduced the belief in misinformation and immunized participants against the impact of a misleading social media post. However, a follow-up (N = 817) questions the longevity of these debunking and prebunking effects. Moreover, the studies reveal potential pitfalls by showing a row of unintended effects of the refutations (lacking effect on intentions, backfire-effects among religious groups, and biased judgments when omitting information about vaccine side effects).

In many civic domains we witness \"video exchanges\" between citizens and the establishment; for example, when citizens upload documentation of police violence, and the police uploads documentation from body cameras providing different takes of the incident. Can such videos influence public opinion? We studied if viewing visual content (of a murder reenactment) with pro-prosecution, pro-defense, and no-narration- affects viewers\' opinions. We found that not only were viewers\' opinions of innocence/guilt and police functioning were affected, but the experience carried over to change opinions about the functioning of the state attorney\'s office and the courts-which were not referenced in the videos. We conclude by discussing the implications for opinion formation in the contemporary media environment.