Sprengholz Philipp, Bührig Dela
Institute of Psychology, University of Bamberg.
Institute for Planetary Health Behavior, University of Erfurt.
Health Commun. 2025 Jan 3:1-7. doi: 10.1080/10410236.2024.2446369.
According to psychological reactance theory, individuals who perceive a threat to or loss of valued behavior will experience reactance - an amalgam of anger and negative cognitions that motivates an effort to regain behavioral freedom. The limited effects of health communication interventions have often been attributed to psychological reactance, and previous research has tended to focus on how to design health messages that mitigate this phenomenon. However, the motivational nature of reactance suggests that it might also be used to promote health. When people learn that external influences circumvent a positive health behavior, this information may elicit reactance, motivating them to exhibit that behavior. This idea found support in the results of a preregistered experiment ( = 358), showing that participants were more willing to reduce meat consumption when they experienced reactance after reading about how the food industry undermines self-determined dietary decisions. The findings indicate that harnessing reactance to leverage behavior change may offer a promising alternative to established communication strategies.
根据心理抗拒理论，那些察觉到对有价值行为的威胁或丧失的个体将会经历抗拒——一种愤怒与负面认知的混合体，它促使个体努力重新获得行为自由。健康传播干预措施效果有限，这常常归因于心理抗拒，并且以往的研究倾向于聚焦如何设计能减轻这种现象的健康信息。然而，抗拒的动机性质表明它或许也可用于促进健康。当人们得知外部影响阻碍了积极的健康行为时，这一信息可能引发抗拒，促使他们展现出那种行为。这一观点在一项预先注册的实验（n = 358）结果中得到了支持，该实验表明，当参与者在阅读了食品行业如何破坏自主饮食决策后产生抗拒时，他们更愿意减少肉类消费。研究结果表明，利用抗拒来推动行为改变可能为既定的传播策略提供一个有前景的替代方案。
