ABSTRACT
THE effects of including fear-arousing material in a persuasive message have been debated frequently (Sussman, 1973). 1 The antecedents of modern debate on this question reside in paradoxical experimental results. Some experiments show that there is more conformity to message recommendations when the amount of fear in the persuasive message is high than when it is low (for example, see Beck & Davis, 1978). Other experiments report data in which there is more conformity to message recommendations when the amount of fear in the persuasive message is low than when it is high (see Janis & Feshbach, 1953). Still other experiments present data that demonstrate that the amount of fear in the persuasive message has no impact on the extent to which a listener conforms to the recommendations of the persuasive message (see Wheatley & Oshikawa, 1970).
