TY - JOUR
T1 - An Experimental Test of Stigma Communication Content with a Hypothetical Infectious Disease Alert
AU - Smith, Rachel A.
N1 - Funding Information:
Rachel A. Smith (PhD) is at the Department of Communication Arts & Sciences, Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics, and the Methodology Center, Pennsylvania State University. Thanks go to CIDD and CAS 555 (Health Communication) for their feedback on early analyses. This project was supported by Award Number P50-DA010075 from the National Institute on Drug Abuse. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institute on Drug Abuse or the National Institutes of Health. Correspondence to: Rachel A. Smith, Department of Communication Arts & Sciences, Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16803, USA. E-mail: [email protected]
Copyright:
Copyright 2012 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2012/12
Y1 - 2012/12
N2 - Recent interest in the role of communication in stigma creation, diffusion, and copying has inspired theorizing. This study presents the first empirical test of one model of stigma communication (Smith, 2007), with a hypothetical infectious disease alert. This study uses an experiment (N=333) to illustrate how changing several words and monitoring four cognitive and affective reactions and a personality trait becomes predictive of almost half (R 2=.49) of the variance in support for intervention policies, including removing and isolating infected persons, forcing treatment, and generating a publicly accessible map of infected persons. Message content and reactions also predicted perceptions of normative stigma beliefs toward infected persons (R 2=.26) and the likelihood of disseminating content of the alert to others (R 2=.15). Results generally support the model of stigma communication and indicate places for refinement.
AB - Recent interest in the role of communication in stigma creation, diffusion, and copying has inspired theorizing. This study presents the first empirical test of one model of stigma communication (Smith, 2007), with a hypothetical infectious disease alert. This study uses an experiment (N=333) to illustrate how changing several words and monitoring four cognitive and affective reactions and a personality trait becomes predictive of almost half (R 2=.49) of the variance in support for intervention policies, including removing and isolating infected persons, forcing treatment, and generating a publicly accessible map of infected persons. Message content and reactions also predicted perceptions of normative stigma beliefs toward infected persons (R 2=.26) and the likelihood of disseminating content of the alert to others (R 2=.15). Results generally support the model of stigma communication and indicate places for refinement.
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U2 - 10.1080/03637751.2012.723811
DO - 10.1080/03637751.2012.723811
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84869768120
SN - 0363-7751
VL - 79
SP - 522
EP - 538
JO - Communication Monographs
JF - Communication Monographs
IS - 4
ER -