Redefining risk in prospect theory : how goal framing and efficacy difference interact to promote elderly Singaporeans’ influenza vaccination

• Main Author: Luo, Meiyin
• Other Authors: May Oo Lwin
• Format: Theses and Dissertations
• Language: English
• Published: 2019
• Subjects: DRNTU::Social sciences::Communication::Communication theories and models
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/89316; http://hdl.handle.net/10220/47736
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Suboptimal influenza vaccination may increase pandemic risks and add burdens to public healthcare systems. Applications of goal framing to the vaccine advocacy have captured mixed findings and brought challenges to its rationale – prospect theory. Given debates on the concept explications of risk in the framing literature, the notion of vaccine risk has been further refined from a novel perspective. This research examined how goal framing and efficacy salience interacted to yield optimal persuasiveness in influenza vaccine messages. A 2 (goal framing) × 3 (salience of efficacy difference) between-factorial experiment was conducted in Singapore. Results showed that weak persuasiveness of goal framing could be optimized when introducing the efficacy difference. Theoretically, this research improves the applicability of prospect theory in the health persuasion by redefining vaccine risks as the salience of efficacy difference between action and inaction. Practically, for Singapore government and public healthcare industry, present findings shed light on the alternative message designs to promote influenza vaccine engagement in the elderly population.