Measuring defensive responses to threatening messages: a meta-analysis of measures
By A. Good, C. Abraham. 2007
89 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Abstract A systematic review and meta-analysis was conducted to establish the nature and relative sensitivity of measures used to detect defensive responses to threatening messages. Databases were searched using a descendency approach to identify quasi-experimental or experimental studies which (i) exposed participants to information that could be personally threatening; (ii) included measures of defensiveness; and (iii) compared groups that differed in their expected defensiveness. Comparisons between three types of group were included: (a) those who naturally differed in the personal relevance of the threatening message; (b) those who had or had not received efficacy information; and (c) those who had or had not received self-affirmation. Thirty-five papers (reporting 43 studies) met these criteria. Twelve different types of defensiveness measures were identified. Of these, only three generated consistently expected results in relation to anticipated group differences. Suggestions are made for the use of multiple, standardised measures of defensive processing in future research.
Subfields: Applied Psychology, Social Psychology, Sociology and Political Science
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/c2375c828754255e948224fa12edd4f1bd65440b
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In Applied Psychology
In Social Psychology
In Sociology and Political Science
Citations in the corpus
- The use of positive and negative appeals in social advertising: a content analysis of television ads for preventing HIV/AIDS (2021, background): “Fear control or maladaptive coping responses are defensive reactions to fear appeals that result in unintended consequences, such as the boomerang effect (Cho & Salmon, 2007; Good & Abraham, 2007).”
- Defensive reactions to health-promoting information: an overview and implications for future research (2013, background): “…the information had real personal relevance (i.e., women who regularly drank coffee) were less persuaded than low-relevance participants (i.e., women who did not regularly drink coffee or male participants), suggesting ‘defensiveness’ on the part of high-relevance recipients (Good & Abraham, 2007).”