Effects of self-transcendence on neural responses to persuasive messages and health behavior change

Self-transcendence refers to a shift in mindset from focusing on self-interests to the well-being of others. We offer an integrative neural model of self-transcendence in the context of persuasive messaging by examining the mechanisms of self-transcendence in promoting receptivity to health messages and behavior change. Specifically, we posited that focusing on values and activities that transcend the self can allow people to see that their self-worth is not tied to a specific behavior in question, and in turn become more receptive to subsequent, otherwise threatening health information. To test whether inducing self-transcendent mindsets before message delivery would help overcome defensiveness and increase receptivity, we used two priming tasks, affirmation and compassion, to elicit a transcendent mindset among 220 sedentary adults. As preregistered, those who completed a self-transcendence task before health message exposure, compared with controls, showed greater increases in objectively logged levels of physical activity throughout the following month. In the brain, self-transcendence tasks up-regulated activity in a region of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, chosen for its role in positive valuation and reward processing. During subsequent health message exposure, self-transcendence priming was associated with increased activity in subregions of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, implicated in self-related processing and positive valuation, which predicted later decreases in sedentary behavior. The present findings suggest that having a positive self-transcendent mindset can increase behavior change, in part by increasing neural receptivity to health messaging

Disentangling The Reciprocal Causal Relationship Between Political Efficacy And Sharing Traditional And Humorous Political Information

A reciprocal relationship purportedly exists between political efficacy, one’s belief in their ability to effectively participate in democratic activities, and news sharing, such that greater political efficacy may lead to greater news sharing, which might then cultivate or reinforce political efficacy. In this dissertation, we deployed short interventions using online surveys to test whether manipulating political efficacy influences news sharing intentions, and whether manipulating news sharing behavior influences individual political efficacy. We also explore the relationship between news sharing and collective political efficacy, or the perceived belief in the abilities of American citizens to effectively organize for political action. Further, political humor and satire currently occupies a significant media space as an accessible and shareable format of political news information. We deepen our analysis by testing the influence of political humor on the causal relationships between political efficacy and news sharing. In this dissertation, we present findings from three online survey experimental studies. In Study 1 (N=517), building on the idea that political efficacy can be developed by successful personal experiences of political participation, we examined the effect of civic values-based affirmation, Civic Affirmation on increasing political efficacy. In Study 2 (N=397), we tested the intended manipulation of political efficacy via Civic affirmation, on news sharing. Here, we also manipulated humor by sourcing news videos from both traditional news and news comedy programming. Lastly, in Study 3 (N=459), we tested the effect of news sharing and humor on political efficacy. Here, we manipulated news sharing by asking participants to select videos from lists of news videos to share with other participants. Results show that Civic Affirmation led to greater collective political efficacy and news sharing intentions as compared to traditional values-based affirmation, and that sharing news with others did not lead to greater political efficacy. Further, individuals who were not assigned any treatment showed greater collective political efficacy than those who were assigned affirmation tasks, news video sharing or description tasks. These findings suggest further investigation in the role of collective political efficacy on political engagement, and revisiting the role of short psychological interventions in developing civic attitudes and behaviors

cnlab/covid19-message-framing: Initial

Initial releas

Brain System Integration and Message Consistent Health Behavior Change

Objective: Modifiable behaviors, including physical activity and sedentary behavior, are important determinants of health. Health messages are important tools for influencing these behaviors. Activity in regions of the brain’s default mode and salience systems are independently associated with attending to information promoting health behavior. Interactions between these brain systems support information processing. However, it remains unclear how these brain systems interact during exposure to persuasive messages and how this interaction relates to subsequent behavior change. Here, we examine how the relative integration between default mode and salience systems while viewing health messages relates to changes in health behavior. Methods: Using wrist-worn accelerometers, we objectively logged physical activity in 150 participants (mean age=33.17 years, 64% women; 43% Black, 37% white, 7% Asian, 5% Hispanic, and 8% other) continuously for an average of 10 days. Participants then viewed health messages encouraging physical activity while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and completed an additional month where physical activity was logged and the health messages were reinforced with daily text reminders. Results: Individuals with higher default mode and salience system integration during exposure to health messaging encouraging physical activity were more likely to decrease their sedentary behavior and increase light physical activity in the month following fMRI than participants with lower brain integration. Conclusions: Interactions between the salience and default mode systems are associated with message receptivity and subsequent behavior change, highlighting the value of expanding the focus from the role of single brain regions in health behavior change to larger-scale connectivity

Message self and social relevance increases intentions to share content: Correlational and causal evidence from six studies

Information sharing within social networks can catalyze widespread attitudinal and behavioral change and the chance to share information with others has been characterized as inherently valuable to people. But what are the sources of value and how might they be leveraged to promote sharing? We test ideas from the value-based virality model that the value of sharing increases when people perceive messages as more relevant to themselves and to people they know, resulting in stronger intentions to share. We extend this work by considering how sharing context-broadcasting to a wide audience or narrowcasting directly to someone-may alter these relationships. Six online studies with adults in the United States (N participants = 3,727; messages = 362; message ratings = 30,954) showed robust evidence that self and social relevance are positively and uniquely related to sharing intentions within- and between-person. Specification curve analysis showed these relationships were consistent across message content (COVID-19, voting, general health, climate change), medium (social media post and news articles), and sharing context (broad- and narrowcasting). A preregistered experiment showed that manipulating the self and social relevance of messages through a framing manipulation causally increased sharing intentions. These causal effects were mediated by changes in both self and social relevance, but the relative strength of the causal pathways differed depending on sharing context. These findings extend existing models of information sharing, and highlight self and social relevance as psychological mechanisms that motivate information sharing that can be targeted to promote sharing across contexts. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)

Message self and social relevance increases intentions to share content: Correlational and causal evidence from six studies

Information sharing within social networks can catalyze widespread attitudinal and behavioral change and the chance to share information with others has been characterized as inherently valuable to people. But what are the sources of value and how might they be leveraged to promote sharing? We test ideas from the value-based virality model that the value of sharing increases when people perceive messages as more relevant to themselves and to people they know, resulting in stronger intentions to share. We extend this work by considering how sharing context-broadcasting to a wide audience or narrowcasting directly to someone-may alter these relationships. Six online studies with adults in the United States (N participants = 3,727; messages = 362; message ratings = 30,954) showed robust evidence that self and social relevance are positively and uniquely related to sharing intentions within- and between-person. Specification curve analysis showed these relationships were consistent across message content (COVID-19, voting, general health, climate change), medium (social media post and news articles), and sharing context (broad- and narrowcasting). A preregistered experiment showed that manipulating the self and social relevance of messages through a framing manipulation causally increased sharing intentions. These causal effects were mediated by changes in both self and social relevance, but the relative strength of the causal pathways differed depending on sharing context. These findings extend existing models of information sharing, and highlight self and social relevance as psychological mechanisms that motivate information sharing that can be targeted to promote sharing across contexts. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)