Finer Nuances of Health Comms
Image courtesy Physiopedia

Finer Nuances of Health Comms

With the pandemic almost behind us, I am quite sure most of us have come across a zillion W-University forwards that advise us to consume something to build our immunity, behave in a certain way, practice yoga, and above all take or not-take the booster dose.

How do you respond to such messages? Do you belong to the group which remains paranoid and consumes every piece of information as it is received, or to the one which rubbishes all such information with a caveat that one can’t do much in such situations? Perhaps, as you rightly guessed, most of us fall somewhere in the middle.

Have you ever reflected on why you respond to such information in the way you do? My guess is that 99 out of 100 people do not have a clue. Sorry for making such a conjecture but my job as a writer is to make my readers aware of the underlying psychological activity, if I may.

There are a number of thoughts rushing in our heads as we imbibe health messages and you might want to read through to become aware of those.

High levels of threat and high levels of efficacy: Most health messages combine a high level of threat perception and remedial possibilities. For instance, a message might convince you that long exposure to the Sun can lead to skin cancer unless you use a sunscreen lotion or an umbrella to shield yourself.?

If you carefully notice, it is the presence of a simple alternative - a solution - that helps you easily internalize the message. What if the solution was not present in the message? Well, then it will lead to the next level response of denial or defensive avoidance.

Denial or defensive avoidance: If the remedial possibility does not exist in the message, our brains tend to deny or defensively avoid the threat. So the response can be something like this: ‘It does not happen to everyone in any case. It will not happen to me.’ Alternately, it can be: ‘Well, if it has to happen, it will. I can’t do anything about it.’

A variation of this thought process is what you can refer to as the survivor syndrome. ‘My old man drank to his heart’s content until 90 and lived ever so happily. I don’t think I will have liver problems with two or three pegs a day.’?

Peripheral or central processing: Basically our brains process most of the information we receive through associations and simple heuristics. It is the easiest way to process information. It is also known as peripheral processing. On the other hand, when a message is relevant or important to you, the brain will process it centrally. Central processing involves a lot of effort and our brains tend to avoid the route until necessary. For instance, individuals whose parents have been diagnosed with diabetes tend to process related information with much greater attention, lest they end up with the disease themselves. (For a deeper understanding of peripheral and central processing, please refer to Daniel Kahneman’s masterpiece, ‘Thinking: Fast and Slow’)?

Credibility or attractiveness of the source: The other factor to be kept in mind is that the credibility of the source of your information often plays a much bigger role in your consumption of the message, rather than the argument or content it may have.?

If you consciously keep all these factors in your interpretation of the message, you might often reach a different conclusion than the one you may have formed if you peripherally processed it the first time. ?

It is also time reflect on why some messages are more persuasive than others. In a nutshell, such messages succeed in balancing fear appeals with remediation measures that appear (and feel) feasible.?

So how do they do it? Guess that is for another time and place.???

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