The interactive influence of individuals’ initial attitudes and affective-cognitive persuasion on fruits and vegetables consumption

Abstract

Although past research showed that one’s initial attitudes can affect persuasion, few studies have explored this relationship by examining beliefs and emotions separately. Moreover, many health behavior campaigns show poor outcomes. For example, only 13.6% of young adults eat enough fruits and vegetables. This study explores how individuals’ initial attitudes interact with either a belief-focused or an emotion-focused message to affect fruits and vegetables consumption, which was found to be a cognitive meta-basis topic in pilot testing. That is, cultural norms for this topic creates more interests to process beliefs than emotions. In this study, individuals first reported their initial fruits and vegetables consumption attitudes. They were then randomly assigned to focus on either positive beliefs or emotions about eating fruits and vegetables, before reporting their consumption intentions. For those with less positive initial attitudes, focusing on emotions than on beliefs led to greater consumption intentions. But affective-cognitive focus did not matter for those with better initial attitudes. Thus, for those with less positive initial attitudes, message tailoring may backfire.