Reversing the boomerang effect in persuasive health communication : reducing psychological reactance to self-persuasion using inoculation and restoration treatments

Abstract

The elements of a persuasive message can have serious implications for its effect on recipients. For purveyors of persuasive health communication messages, the boomerang effect of psychological reactance, during which recipients will enact the opposite of a persuasive appeal, message effects are of particular concern. This thesis contrasted two ways of reducing reactance -- inoculation and restorative postscript treatments -- at high and at low levels of freedom threatening language. The persuasive appeal used in this experiment was one that advocated for having open conversations with an intimate partner about sexual history before engaging in sexual behaviors. Results indicated that at high levels of freedom-threatening language, using both inoculation treatments before and restoration treatments after persuasion changed the way participants reported they experienced reactance.