Shi Jingyuan, Dai Yue
Department of Communication Studies, Hong Kong Baptist University.
Department of Media and Communication, City University of Hong Kong.
Health Commun. 2022 Feb;37(2):242-254. doi: 10.1080/10410236.2020.1834209. Epub 2020 Oct 19.
The Internet widely display interactions between various parties, calling for research to understand how message- and source-related factors in these easily observed interactions influence observers' attitudes in health contexts. From a masspersonal communication perspective, we investigated how reading a conversation about seeking counseling between two members of an online support group affects individuals' attitudes toward counseling-seeking behavior. In the conversation, one group member asked for advice about depressive symptoms, and in our online experiment with adults living in the United States ( = 250), we manipulated the responding source's expert status and framing of the message that recommended seeking counseling. Guided by an overarching theoretical framework-dual-process theory of supportive communication outcomes, we found a significant three-way interaction among severity of depressive symptomatology (low vs. high), message framing (gain vs. loss), and source expertise (peer vs. peer counselor vs. professional counselor). When a peer counselor provided the message, loss framing reduced self-stigma toward seeking counseling to a greater degree than gain framing and, in turn, induced more favorable attitudes toward the behavior among people with a high severity of depressive symptomatology. Those findings provide theoretical insights into the masspersonal communication approach to health promotion and inform promising communication strategies to promote counseling-seeking behavior among people with depressive symptomatology.
互联网广泛展示了各方之间的互动，这就需要开展研究，以了解在这些易于观察的互动中，与信息和来源相关的因素如何在健康背景下影响观察者的态度。从大众人际传播的角度出发，我们研究了阅读在线支持小组两名成员之间关于寻求咨询的对话如何影响个人对寻求咨询行为的态度。在对话中，一名小组成员询问了关于抑郁症状的建议，在我们针对居住在美国的成年人开展的在线实验中（N = 250），我们操纵了回复者的专家身份以及推荐寻求咨询的信息框架。在一个总体理论框架——支持性沟通结果的双过程理论的指导下，我们发现抑郁症状严重程度（低 vs. 高）、信息框架（获得 vs. 损失）和来源专业性（同伴 vs. 同伴咨询师 vs. 专业咨询师）之间存在显著的三向交互作用。当同伴咨询师提供信息时，损失框架比获得框架在更大程度上减少了对寻求咨询的自我污名化，进而在抑郁症状严重程度高的人群中引发了对该行为更积极的态度。这些发现为健康促进的大众人际传播方法提供了理论见解，并为促进抑郁症状人群寻求咨询行为的有效沟通策略提供了依据。
