Background:

Domestic violence against women is a serious health and social issue, with victims found across the world. Utilizing the collective help of bystanders has become an increasingly important step toward mitigating abuse. Advertising campaigns have shed light on the seriousness of domestic violence, however, messages promoting bystander intervention are comparatively less.

Focus:

The primary focus of this exploratory study is to test the ability of public service announcements (PSAs) to inspire behavior change, i.e. to call a helpline. Emotional ad appeals have the potential to motivate apathetic bystanders to intervene, however, their effectiveness can depend on one’s self-view. Using self-construal and congruity theory, the current study examined the impact of self-focused emotional appeals, namely guilt (negative) and hope (positive), on varying levels of self-construals (independent vs. interdependent).

Hypotheses:

Three key hypotheses were tested: Self-focused emotional appeals using guilt and hope will be more persuasive on an independent self-construal than an interdependent self-construal (H1).

Individuals with a low independent self-construal will find a guilt appeal to be more persuasive than a hope appeal (H2a).

Individuals with a high independent self-construal will find a hope appeal to be more persuasive than a guilt appeal (H2b).

Importance to the Social Marketing Field:

Domestic violence in India is an ongoing issue and PSAs have the ability to motivate behavior change. From the perspective of social marketing and strategy, this exploratory study will shed light on which pairing of self-construal and emotions (guilt or hope) in messages can bring about desired pro-social intentions.

Method:

A single-factor experimental design was implemented with participants (n = 72) recruited from major metros in India.

Results:

Findings from a regression analysis revealed that guilt and hope were persuasive only on the independent self-construal. The next step was to explore the impact of guilt and hope within the independent self-construal (low vs. high). A simple slope test revealed that hope (vs. guilt) significantly strengthened the intentions to call the advertised helpline for those with low independent self-construal, while both hope and guilt were found to be equally effective on the high independent self-construal.

Recommendations for Research and Practice:

The findings add to the growing literature on domestic violence prevention messages by emphasizing the importance of emotional persuasion through cultural congruence. By taking varying levels of independent self-construal into consideration, social marketers can accordingly utilize emotional ad appeals like guilt and hope to help bystanders develop positive intentions to intervene.

Limitations:

Despite the significant findings, this exploratory study focused on the impact of two emotional ad appeals (guilt and hope) on a small sample of participants from a single country, India.

中文翻译：

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专注于情绪的广告在呼吁家庭暴力求助热线中扮演的角色：在印度语境中探索内，感，希望和独立自我建设者

背景：

针对妇女的家庭暴力是一个严重的健康和社会问题，全世界都有受害者。利用旁观者的集体帮助已成为减轻虐待的越来越重要的一步。广告活动揭示了家庭暴力的严重性，但是，宣传旁观者干预的信息相对较少。

重点：

这项探索性研究的主要重点是测试公共服务公告（PSA）激发行为改变（即致电帮助热线）的能力。情绪化的广告诉求可能会激发冷漠的旁观者进行干预，但是其效果可能取决于个人的看法。本研究使用自我建构和一致性理论，研究了自我关注的情感诉求（即内（消极）和希望（积极））对不同水平的自我建构（独立与相互依存）的影响。

假设：

测试了三个关键的假设：使用内Self感的自我关注的情感诉求，并且希望对独立的自我建构比相互依赖的自我建构更具说服力（H1）。

独立性很强的人会发现，内a感的诉求比希望诉求（H2a）更具说服力。

具有较高独立性的个人会发现，希望希望的吸引力比内感（H2b）更具有说服力。

对社会营销领域的重要性：

印度的家庭暴力是一个持续存在的问题，PSA有能力推动行为改变。从社会营销和策略的角度来看，这项探索性研究将阐明，信息中的自我建构和情感（内or或希望）的配对可以带来理想的亲社会意图。

方法：

从印度主要城市招募的参与者（n = 72）实施了单因素实验设计。

结果：

回归分析的结果表明，内和希望仅对独立的自我建构具有说服力。下一步是探索内self和希望对独立自我建构的影响（低与高）。一个简单的斜率测试显示，希望（对罪恶感）显着增强了针对那些具有较低独立自我建设能力的人拨打广告帮助热线的意图，而发现希望和负罪感对于高度独立自我建设能力同样有效。

研究和实践建议：

这些发现强调了通过文化共融来进行情感说服的重要性，从而增加了有关预防家庭暴力信息的文献。通过考虑不同水平的独立自我建构，社交营销人员可以相应地利用诸如罪恶感之类的情感广告诉求，并希望帮助旁观者树立积极的干预意图。

局限性：

尽管有重大发现，但这项探索性研究的重点是两个情感广告诉求（内gui感和希望）对来自单个国家（印度）的一小部分参与者的影响。