This week our readings and class lecture were about the use of fear tactics within health communications. Personally, this is one of my favorite tools to use to elicit behavior change. For me, fear is an effective motivator to either engage or terminate a behavior. The video that Brian showed during his presentation was actually the reason why I stopped texting while driving. There is a lot of literature and studies that state that fear tactics are not effective in increasing positive behavior. To me, it seems like the only real way to convince people to stop negative health behaviors. The concepts Brian discussed in his presentation also correlate with the fact that people are motivated by fear and by addressing it we as public health specialists can use it to our advantage.
Another construct identified this week was humor in marketing strategies and if it might be applicable to health promotion communication. Be a jester myself, I think that humor is a great way to catch attention. Looking back on social marketing in the 40s and 50s, they would never have been caught dead using humor in their ads for fear of possibly insulting someone. Depending on your audience i think both fear and humor can be used effectively to influence behavior change
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