The Impact of Behavioral Topic on Psychological Reactance: Arousal and Freedom Restoration

Psychological reactance theory (PRT) proposes that the importance of freedom, along with threat to freedom and receiver personality trait, impacts the arousal of psychological reactance and the subsequent freedom restoration. This paper presents a 2 (threat: low vs. high) × 3 (source: the CDC, victi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of broadcasting & electronic media Vol. 66; no. 1; pp. 47 - 67
Main Authors Li, Ruobing, Shen, Lijiang
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Philadelphia Routledge 01.01.2022
Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group
Subjects
Arousal
Between-subjects design
Freedoms
Legitimacy
Mental health
Personality
Reactance
Restoration
Threats
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Summary:Psychological reactance theory (PRT) proposes that the importance of freedom, along with threat to freedom and receiver personality trait, impacts the arousal of psychological reactance and the subsequent freedom restoration. This paper presents a 2 (threat: low vs. high) × 3 (source: the CDC, victim of the health issue vs. AI) × 2 (health topic: college drinking vs. STD) between-subjects experiment (N = 765) to test the potential effects of topic and source legitimacy on reactance. Results showed that behavioral topic influenced the magnitude of psychological reactance and forms of freedom restoration simultaneously. Theoretical contributions, implications, and limitations are discussed.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
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ISSN:0883-8151
1550-6878
DOI:10.1080/08838151.2021.2019257