The effects of persuasion strategies (humor and fear emotion) and types of message contexts on persuasion

Persuasion is the art of convincing another person to accept a certain argument. There has been no earlier studies of combining certain emotionally-driven persuasion strategies (i.e. fear and humor) and specific message contexts (i.e. health, product advertisement, environmental concerns) thus, this study was done to determine if there is a significant effect in persuasion under the above conditions. Participants were 180 undergraduate students from different colleges and universities in Mega Manila. All participants underwent the experiment, which consists of answering a pre-test, viewing of a persuasive message in video format, and completing a post-test. Combining the fear persuasion strategy with the environmental type of message garnered the highest attitude change as fear elicits anxiety in individuals and heightens their concern for themselves and others. Overall, fear yields a more significant effect on persuasion than humor. Future campaigns on health, product advertisement and environment may be constructed to have a more threatening appeal if it deems appropriate to the message they are trying to convey