Promoting Safe Driving Behaviors: The Influence of Message Framing and Issue Involvement

Abstract

This study examined the influence of framing and issue involvement on the intentions of participants to perform safe driving behaviors. It was hypothesized that when participants were involved with the issue, gain messages would increase intentions to perform safe driving behaviors more than would loss messages. To examine this hypothesis, participants were classified as either being high or low in involvement, and then were required to read either a gain or a loss message promoting a particular safe‐driving behavior. After reading the message, the participants' agreement with the message, cognitive and affective responses to the message, and intentions to perform the behavior were recorded. The results supported the hypothesis.