When it comes to motivating people to vote, identity theory is influential. Studies have shown us that how we refer to people ahead of a vote can influence their likelihood to vote. In short, if we use a noun (a ‘voter’) rather than a verb (‘to vote’), we can see double digit increases in voter turn-out. To be clear, this is one of the largest effects identified in a large-scale field experiment — an uptick of over 10%, simply as a result of reframing the request to use the vote. Identity theory tells us this happens because the noun version (‘a voter’) speaks to our self-concept; wanting to align with what society expects of us, increases the likelihood of us engaging in that behaviour. It’s an opportunity for positive distinctiveness.

Giving advice, as opposed to receiving it, appears to help unmotivated people feel powerful because it involves reflecting on knowledge that they already have. So if you’re completely clueless about the resources or strategies necessary for progress, asking for help is probably the best first step. But if you (like most of us), know what you need to do, but are having trouble actually doing it, giving someone advice may be the push you need.

In a study, the researchers said that smokers who had limited familiarity with information technology were more likely to consider antismoking messages manipulative and boring when they browsed those messages on a website with interactive features, such as sliders, mouseovers and zooming tools.

The 2019 Edelman Trust Barometer reveals that trust has changed profoundly in the past year—people have shifted their trust to the relationships within their control, most notably their employers. Globally, 75 percent of people trust “my employer” to do what is right, significantly more than NGOs (57 percent), business (56 percent) and media (47 percent).

This article reports on new research that finds certain messages reduce fear of sharks, key to promoting conservation-minded responses to shark bites. Here it is argued that the sophistication in public feelings toward these highly emotional events has allowed new actors to mobilize and given rise to the ‘Save the Sharks’ movement. In a unique experiment coupling randomly assigned intent-based priming messages with exposure to sharks in a ‘shark tunnel’, a potential path to reduce public fear of sharks and alter policy preferences is investigated. Priming for the absence of intent yielded significant fear extinction effects, providing a viable means of increasing support for non-lethal policy options following shark bite incidents. High levels of pride and low levels of blame for bite incidents are also found. In all, this article provides a step towards improving our understanding of fear and fear reduction in public policy.

In April 2018, almost 1,200 people gathered in Indonesia for the Summit on Behaviour and Social Change Communication. Practitioners, researchers, donors, and leaders from more than 400 organisations travelled to Nusa Dua from the Asia Pacific region, Africa, Europe, Latin America, and North America. This issue features ten papers prepared by SUMMIT participants based on their presentations. They cover a range of challenges from using story-telling to help fishermen in Belize deal with threats to their occupations, and influencing adolescent girls and boys in India to address gender discrimination and stereotyping – to the use of social media to change norms regarding babies’ health in Malawi.

Good, very concrete communications with examples of exactly how much of a difference an individual can make to prevent people from feeling overwhelmed and like they can't make a difference on the issue

Actually and "like I told you before"

Three of the best-known health messages are eating five portions a day of fruit and vegetables, getting 150 minutes of exercise a week and quitting smoking. But what evidence is there that these have worked?

The results lead to some useful messaging recommendations, such as active publics being more effectively moved to action through motivational frames, rather than diagnostic (i.e. problem-focused) or prognostic (i.e. solution-focused) frames.

A negatively framed message (i.e. which describes the behavior that should not be done) is more effective, at least in this context, than a positive framed message that describes the preferred behavior.

YouGov showed respondents a selection of adjectives from a list of 24 and asked them to score each on a scale from 0-10, with 0 being “very negative” and 10 being “very positive”. Compared US and UK.

Unfortunately for Mountain Dew The Scotsman didn’t include the fact that “chug” means “masturbation” in this particular part of the UK. And now, as Vice reports, the soft drink brand is being mercilessly ripped on Twitter for inadvertently telling everyone that they’re chronic masturbators. On Monday the company tweeted a .gif of a guy madly downing a bottle of Mountain Dew, with the slogan “epic thrills start with a chug”.

7 rules for conversational writing for chatbots

The next time you find yourself stating that a deal or other business outcome is “unlikely” or, alternatively, is “virtually certain,” stop yourself and ask: What percentage chance, in what time period, would I put on this outcome? Frame your prediction that way, and it’ll be clear to both yourself and others where you truly stand.

You need to show the other party that his beliefs are actually in conflict with his own values and goals, all without making him defensive. It sounds like a tall order, but Tsipurksy insists it is possible. Offering concrete examples of people who have changed their minds can help. So can suggesting that a person's previous opinion was understandable given the information he or she had at the time.

Technical experts and their peers are considered the most credible for information on social media, according to the latest 2018 Edelman Trust Barometer survey. By comparison, celebrities, corporate executives and journalists are considered far less credible.

New research finds that people tend toward appeals that aren't simply more positive or negative but are infused with emotionality, even when they're trying to sway an audience that may not be receptive to such language. The findings appear in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science

By eliminating just one word from your writing you can automatically avoid a major communication pitfall. The word? Not. Cut the Not!

In a study, people ate less meat and conserved more water when they thought those behaviors reflected how society is changing.

Comment from Daryl Mangosing who posted this on LinkedIn: To me, this isn't surprising, considering that those who take PrEP in *monogamous* relationships would be signaling that they either don't trust their primary partner OR that they themselves are having sex outside the primary relationship: "Men in monogamous relationships were significantly less likely both to think that PrEP is important for their partners and to be willing to convince their partner to use PrEP compared to men in monogamish and open relationships." Should we only focus PrEP uptake where there's a higher likelihood of success, i.e., among non-monogamous couples and not strictly monogamous couples?

Breast cancer prevention in the charedi community