About
35
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Introduction
Skills and Expertise
Additional affiliations
August 2018 - August 2023
Education
August 2013 - August 2016
August 2013 - May 2018
Publications
Publications (35)
In the context of public service advertisements promoting human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination, the current research examines 1) the relative persuasiveness of narrative vs. non-narrative messages and 2) the influence of narrative perspective (first- vs. third-person) and modality (text-based vs. audio-based) on message effectiveness. Results of...
Purpose
Mental illness has become an important public health issue in society, and media are the most common sources of information about mental illnesses. Thus, it is important to review research on mental illnesses and media. The purpose of this paper is to provide a narrative review of studies on mental illnesses in the media and identifies impo...
This study examines the moderating role of message framing in narrative persuasion in the context of promoting smoking cessation. A controlled experiment involving 101 college smokers revealed a significant interaction effect between message framing (gain-framing vs. loss-framing) and evidence type (narrative vs. non-narrative) on smoking-related r...
This study examines nonsmokers’ responses to anti-smoking messages. Informed by construal level theory, it investigates whether and how evidence type (narrative vs. non-narrative) and social distance might interact to influence nonsmokers’ attitudes toward others’ quitting smoking and intentions to persuade others to quit smoking. Results of a cont...
Narratives play a critical role in health communication and promotion on social media. This study aimed to identify the features of popular social media narratives that generate emotional support and engage users in cancer communication. We conducted a content analysis of popular breast cancer narratives (N = 410) by five influential breast cancer...
Immersive narratives—narratives viewed in immersive mediated environments—are a promising tool for increasing empathy and persuasion due to their presumed capacity to place viewers inside a story world. Empirical studies, however, have produced mixed findings. This meta-analysis synthesized findings on the effects of narratives viewed in high (vs....
Alcohol is a known carcinogen. However, public awareness of cancer risk associated with alcohol use is low. A promising approach to raising awareness is to include cancer warning labels on alcohol-containing products, but there is limited knowledge of the design and effect of such warnings. The present study investigated the impact of visual elemen...
This study examined the role of perceived narrativity in pictorial warning labels (PWLs) in countering warning reactance and increasing warning effectiveness and support in the context of communicating the cancer risk of alcohol. Findings from a randomized experiment (N = 1,188) showed that PWLs with imagery of lived experience were perceived highe...
As information consumption plays a critical role in addressing vaccine hesitancy in the hybrid media environment, it becomes crucial to understand how individuals' use of a combination of channels and sources affects their vaccine hesitancy. Based on information repertoire approaches emphasizing the multiplicity of channels and sources, we investig...
COVID-19 is a highly contagious disease first identified in December 2019 and has caused a pandemic of respiratory illness. During a global public health crisis like this one, health communication serves an instrumental role in controlling the spread of the virus. This entry provides a brief overview of the public health communication practices in...
Alcohol causes cancer, but many alcohol consumers are not aware of this risk. Research is needed to identify effective communication strategies to increase risk perceptions and decrease alcohol consumption. This study examined the effects of threatening and hedging languages in communicating the cancer risk associated with alcohol use. Results from...
Narratives have been shown to be an effective way to communicate health risks and promote health behavior change, and given the growing amount of health information being shared on social media, it is crucial to study health- related narratives in social media. However, expert identification of a large number of narrative texts is a time consuming...
Amid emerging information and communication technologies with unique affordances for storytelling and story sharing, most studies in narrative communication still focus on narratives delivered through traditional mediums. There has been little research on how emotionally charged stories can be used to engage audiences on social media. This study ex...
The use of narrative text in health messaging has been ubiquitous. With the popularity of promoting public health on social media, it becomes critical to investigate what visual images should be used to maximize the impact of narrative health-related posts. This study focused on messages designed to communicate the breast cancer risk associated wit...
Purpose
To determine whether social media use, alcohol consumption, and sociodemographic factors predicted Americans’ knowledge about alcohol-related cancer risk.
Design
Health Information National Trends Survey (2020).
Setting
United States.
Subjects
A nationally representative sample ( N = 3865; response rate = 36.7%).
Measures
Knowledge abou...
This study integrates cultivation and intergroup threat theories to examine media cultivation effects during the COVID-19 pandemic. We argue that U.S. media have consistently portrayed China as a threat and target of blame. The cultivation of media has thus resulted in perceived threat of and blame on Chinese people for the COVID-19 pandemic. Resul...
Sharing the stories of people whose lives are impacted by Opioid Use Disorders (OUDs) can be a promising strategy to reduce stigma and increase support for beneficial public policies. Since a story can be told from a first-person or third-person point of view (POV), this study sought to (1) determine the relative persuasive effects of narrative POV...
The COVID-19 pandemic has made it clear that effective public health messaging is an indispensable component of a robust pandemic response system. In this article, we review decades of research from the interdisciplinary field of communication science and provide evidence-based recommendations for COVID-19 public health messaging. We take a princip...
Drawing on the literature on social identity threat, this study examined how threatening e-cigarette users’ identities in a narrative impacts their perceived behavioral control regarding e-cigarette use, and how this effect can be moderated by de-emphasizing the story character’s user identity. In an experiment, current e-cigarette users (N = 395)...
Empathy is considered a cornerstone of high-quality health care and a required element of nursing education. Although computer role-playing games (CRPGs) are a promising tool to promote clinical empathy, little is known about how and why it is effective at improving empathy. The goal of the current study is to investigate the feasibility and effect...
Immersive stories for health are 360° videos that intend to alter viewer perceptions about behaviors detrimental to health. They have potential to inform public health at scale, however, immersive story design is still in early stages and largely devoid of best practices. This paper presents a focus group study with 147 viewers of an immersive stor...
This study investigates how different character perspectives (a main vs. supporting character) impact story-consistent attitudes and beliefs and how that effect varies as a function of modality (mobile phone vs. VR headset) in an immersive story for preventing binge drinking. Results of a controlled experiment (N = 147) showed that participants ass...
This study examined the role of pictorial warning labels (PWLs) featuring narrative content in communicating alcohol-related cancer risks. In an online experiment, 169 adult alcohol consumers were randomly assigned to view two narrative PWLs, two non-narrative PWLs, or control. Results showed that exposure to narrative PWLs significantly increased...
Self-affirmation theory has inspired numerous studies that have tried to understand the effects of self-affirmation on defensive processing of threatening health messages and subsequent behavior. Despite the overall positive effects of self-affirmation, psychological processes through which self-affirmation exerts such impact remain unclear. We exa...
Understanding the social-psychological determinants of the public’s perceptions and intentions related to vaccination is key to promoting vaccination. The current study examines how individual differences in consideration of future and immediate consequences (CFC-F and CFC-I) impact risk perceptions of, and intentions to vaccinate against, COVID-19...
Self-affirmation has shown promise in promoting pro-health attitudes following exposure to threatening health messages by reducing defensive processing of such messages. We examine the impact of self-affirmation prior to viewing graphic cigarette warning labels on implicit and explicit attitudes toward smoking in a sample of African American smoker...
Purpose – This study examined the effects of self-affirmation on African American smokers’ intentions to quit smoking sooner and desire to stop smoking altogether in response to viewing graphic cigarette warning labels. It also tested the mediating role of perceived susceptibility and self-efficacy in explaining the impact of self-affirmation.
De...
Objective:
College students are at risk of drinking and driving. The current study examines the use of immersive stories to prevent college students from drinking and driving.
Participants:
107 college students participated in the study.
Methods:
Participants were randomly assigned to watch an immersive 360° video, which featured a story of a...
In recent years, the journalism and marketing industry has seen an increasing use of immersive stories, in the format of 360° videos and virtual reality. However, the impact of immersive stories on individuals’ beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors is understudied. Drawing upon literature in narrative persuasion and immersive media, this study examined...
This study examines how the relative effects of independent and interdependent self-affirmation might be influenced by individuals’ self-construal. A controlled experiment involving 186 Chinese adult smokers revealed a significant interactive effect of self-affirmation type and self-construal on message derogation and posttest attitudes toward smok...
Objective: To investigate (1) how perceived parental control, perceived parental modeling, and parent-teen co-decision making are associated with teenagers’ consumption of fruits and vegetables as well as
sugary drinks and less healthful food; and (2) whether self-efficacy mediates this relationship.
Design: A cross-sectional survey.
Participants...
Objective
Promoting smoking cessation through effective health messaging among African American smokers is of great urgency as African Americans suffer disproportionally more from smoking-related diseases compared to White smokers. This research examines the potential impact of self-affirmation on reducing defensive processing of graphic cigarette...
This study examines the role of narrative persuasion in promoting acceptance of mental illnesses. Specifically, we investigate the relative persuasiveness of narrative vs. non-narrative messages, as well as the relative effectiveness of first-person vs. third-person narratives. Findings of a between-subjects experiment (N = 562) suggested that narr...
Purpose – China and the U.S. are among the countries where depression is most prevalent. However, the treatment rate of depression is relatively low in these two countries. Negative attitude toward depression is one major contributor to the low treatment rate. This study examines the use of narratives to promote positive attitudes toward depression...
Questions
Questions (2)
Mental illness is common in the United States and internationally. An estimated 26.2 percent of adults suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder in a given year, and one in seventeen live with a serious mental illness in the United States (National Institute of Mental Health [NIMH], n.d.). However, mental illness stigma is a serious problem currently. And it is also true that mental illness has accompanied human kind through out history, which can be seen from some historical anecdotes. And I'm wondering are there also any historical evidence describing the mentally ill were discriminated or stigmatized long long ago? For example, other people may want to avoid interactions with them.
It's true that mental illness stigma is quiet prevalence in the United States, and I'm curious whether it happens to the animals as well. However, I do not have a background in psychology, and I'd really appreciate it if someone could give me some references.
