Extended Parallel Processing Model (EPPM)

Summary

People are highly motivated to make scary risks less scary. If they know how to reduce a risk, they take the appropriate steps. On the other hand, if there is nothing they can do to reduce the risk, they reduce their fear instead by distancing themselves from the risk emotionally or denying it. Consequently, health messages in the form of fear appeals that don’t explain how to reduce a risk can backfire.

Authors

Kim Witte

Seminal references

Witte, K. (1998) Fear as Motivation, Fear as Inhibition: Using the Extended Parallel Process Model to Explain Fear Appeal Successes and Failures (pp. 423-450) In: Handbook of communication and emotion: Research, theory, applications, and contexts. Peter A. Anderson & Laura K. Guerrero (eds.) Academic Press.

Causal constructs

Self-efficacy, Response efficacy, Risk susceptibility appraisal, Risk severity appraisal

Outcome constructs

Fear reduction, Risk reduction

Examples

Prati G, Pietrantoni L, Zani B. Influenza vaccination: The persuasiveness of messages among people aged 65 and older. Health Communication, 2012, 27(5); 413-420.

Kotowski MR, Smith SW, Johnstone PM, Pritt E. Using the extended parallel process model to create and evaluate the effectiveness of brochures to reduce the risk for noise-induced loss in college students. Noise Health, 2011, 13(53); 261-71.

Major advantages

It takes a major emotion – fear – into account.
It explains why fear appeals work in some situations and not in others.
It can be supplemented readily with the notion of outrage at inadequate governmental response (see Sandman, 1987) to account for behavior during public emergencies.

Major Criticisms

Unlike a similar theory, the Transactional Model of Stress and Coping model by Folkman and Lazarus,¹⁴ the EPPM does not take a person’s coping style (i.e., active vs. avoidant) into account.
It has been hard to measure the emotion of fear separately from the intellectual assessment of threat.
Many behavior change practitioners believe that fear appeals can backfire in various ways. They also worry about the ethical implications of delivering frightening messages to audiences that may face a great deal of stress already.¹⁴