The Effects of Message Framing on Acceptance of Influenza and Pneumococcal Vaccine Among Older Adults

• In Event: ICA Interactive Paper/Poster Session II
  In Interactive Poster Session: Health Communication Interactive Poster Session

Abstract

Due to demographic changes, the elderly become increasingly relevant addressees of health promotion. Concurrently, with growing age information processing changes, so that message appeals might have a different effect on elderly as compared to young people. According to the positivity effect, elderly tend to ignore negative components of a message and focus on positive information. Against this background, this study examines the impact of gain and loss framed messages in the context of flu and pneumococcal vaccines on elderly’s perceived vaccine effectiveness, risk perception, attitude, and behavioral intention to get vaccinated. To address this question, we showed our participants (n = 125) two versions of a health information flyer, whereby the central messages were either gain- or loss-framed. Our results show that there were no differences in the dependent variables between the stimuli versions, which might be a result of antagonistic mechanisms of loss frames and positivity effect.

Authors

• Anne Reinhardt, University of Erfurt

• Winja Weber, University of Erfurt, Media and Communication Studies

• Constanze Rossmann, U of Erfurt

• Regina Hanke, Lindgrün GmbH

• Cornelia Betsch, U of Erfurt