A new study tested how different types of messages affect parents' intentions to have their child screened for autism. Researchers randomly assigned parents to receive either a message with statistics, a personal story, or no message at all. The messages also varied in whether they emphasized the benefits of screening (gain-framed) or the risks of not screening (loss-framed).
The results showed that statistical messages were more effective than narrative messages at increasing parents' intentions to get their child screened for autism. However, narrative messages were better at encouraging parents to seek more information about screening. Over the longer term, there were no significant differences between the two message types.
The study also found that the way messages influenced intentions was through how much parents were transported into the story and how much they argued against the message. Only the emotion of sympathy predicted intentions. No safety concerns were reported, as this was a message-testing study.
This research suggests that different message types may be useful for different goals: statistics for prompting action, stories for encouraging further learning. However, the study did not measure actual screening behavior, only intentions. Readers should keep in mind that intentions do not always lead to action.
