CRICOS No. 00213J

Attend to or ignore: How your personality may influence your response to anti-

speeding messagesSherrie Kaye, Dr Melanie White & Dr Ioni Lewis

10th National Conference on Injury Prevention and Safety Promotion, Brisbane, 2011

Overview

• Background– Personality– Health messages

• Hypotheses• Method• Results• Conclusions• Practical Implications

CRICOS No. 00213J

Personality

• Gray and McNaughton’s (2000) revised Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory

• Biological theory of personality/motivation

• Two major systems govern behaviour:– Behavioural Activation System (BAS; reward system)– Fight, Flight, Freezing System (FFFS; punishment system)

Health messages

• Road safety• Message theme• Message framing

– Gain-framed messages• ‘400 people will be saved if drivers were to obey the speed limits’

– Loss-framed messages• ‘400 people will die if drivers do not obey the speed limits’

• Message acceptance– Message effectiveness

– Attitudes

– Behavioural intentions

Hypotheses

• It was hypothesised that both message processing and message acceptance would be dependent upon an individual’s sensitivity to reward or sensitivity to punishment

• Stronger reward system = gain-framed messages• Stronger punishment system = loss-framed messages

Method

• Participants– 133 (69% female)– Aged 17-54 years (M = 24.13, SD = 8.80)

• Between groups design– One of four anti-speeding messages or no message

• Measures– Lexical decision task to assess word processing– Self-report questionnaires (personality & persuasion)

• Analysis– Mediation (Preacher & Hayes Bootstrapping method)

– One-Way ANOVA

Results• Social gain-framed message & BAS• Mediation:

• ANOVA:

β = -89.98*

β = -0.01*

β = 1.42*

β = 0.75 *p<.05

p =.050 p =.050

Results

• No additional significant findings

• Physical gain-framed message & BAS– Processed words differently– Physical anti-speeding messages more common

• Loss-framed messages & FFFS– Social words more positive valenced (i.e., activated BAS instead

of FFFS)– Different fight, flight, and freezing responses to the physical loss-

framed message

Conclusions

• Participants with a stronger BAS would show greater processing of gain-framed messages than those with a weaker BAS and this processing bias would predict message acceptance– Some support

• Participants with a stronger FFFS who were exposed to the loss-framed messages would show a greater processing bias than those with a weaker FFFS and this processing bias would predict message acceptance– No support

Practical Implications

• How road users respond to road safety messages• Design more effective messages to target these higher

risk individuals• Help reduce the number of road related injuries and

fatalities

Acknowledgments

• Centre for Accident Research & Road Safety - Queensland (2010, Honours Bursary)

• Queensland Injury Prevention Council for student funding (2011, PhD Scholarship)

Questions?s1.kaye@qut.edu.au

Mark your Diaries!

International Council on Alcohol, Drugs and Traffic Safety Conference (T2013)

26-29 August 2013, Brisbane