Journal article
Source Similarity and Social Media Health Messages: Extending Construal Level Theory to Message Sources
Cyberpsychology, behavior and social networking, Vol.18(9), pp.547-551
09/2015
DOI: 10.1089/cyber.2015.0050
PMID: 26348816
Abstract
Social media users post messages about health goals and behaviors to online social networks. Compared with more traditional sources of health communication such as physicians or health journalists, peer sources are likely to be perceived as more socially close or similar, which influences how messages are processed. This experimental study uses construal level theory of psychological distance to predict how mediated health messages from peers influence health-related cognition and behavioral intention. Participants were exposed to source cues that identified peer sources as being either highly attitudinally and demographically similar to or different from participants. As predicted by construal level theory, participants who perceived sources of social media health messages as highly similar listed a greater proportion of beliefs about the feasibility of health behaviors and a greater proportion of negative beliefs, while participants who perceived sources as more dissimilar listed a greater proportion of positive beliefs about the health behaviors. Results of the study could be useful in determining how health messages from peers could encourage individuals to set realistic health goals.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Source Similarity and Social Media Health Messages: Extending Construal Level Theory to Message Sources
- Creators
- Rachel Young - School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Iowa , Iowa City, Iowa
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Cyberpsychology, behavior and social networking, Vol.18(9), pp.547-551
- DOI
- 10.1089/cyber.2015.0050
- PMID
- 26348816
- NLM abbreviation
- Cyberpsychol Behav Soc Netw
- ISSN
- 2152-2715
- eISSN
- 2152-2723
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 09/2015
- Academic Unit
- Injury Prevention Research Center; School of Journalism and Mass Communication
- Record Identifier
- 9984083840902771
Metrics
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