Communication Yearbook 33

Christina S. Beck

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2009
• ISBN:
  9781135227302
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Communication Studies
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

The Communication Yearbook annuals publish diverse, state-of-the-discipline literature reviews across the field of communication. Sponsored by the International Communication Association, volumes offer insightful descriptions of research as well as reflections on the implications of those findings for other areas of the discipline. Editor Christina S. Beck presents a diverse, international selection of articles that highlight empirical and theoretical intersections in the communication discipline.

1 The Boomerang Effect

A Synthesis of Findings and a Preliminary Theoretical Framework

Sahara Byrne
Philip Solomon Hart
Cornell University

Correspondence: e-mail: [email protected]

Communicative messages are often constructed strategically. In many cases, the creators of such messages strive to curtail specific anti-social or unhealthy attitudes and behaviors held by the target audience. However, these messages are not always successful in achieving the intended effect. Messages with a specific intent can backfire and cause an increase in the unhealthy or anti-social attitude or behavior targeted for change. We present a review of findings that have resulted in boomerang effects, broadly defined. An analysis of theoretical mechanisms for the effect eventuates in the proposal of two distinct paths to the boomerang. One path predicts that message receivers will process harmful elements in a message at the expense of those that were intended. The other path predicts that receivers will process the message as intended, but then resist complying with it. Finally, we offer a preliminary theoretical framework of boomerang effects.

Strategic communication encompasses any communication with a well-defined intent on the part of the sender or message creator (Piotrow & Kincaid, 2001). Examples of this type of communication include commercial advertising that aims to persuade individuals to purchase a specific product, social marketing campaigns that attempt to change unhealthy attitudes and behaviors, and media literacy interventions given to children with the intent of preventing negative effects of the media. Many strategic messages intend to have a pro-social effect on individuals, namely to curtail the manifestation of anti-social or unhealthy attitudes or behaviors. However, strategic messages do not always succeed in achieving this intended effect. Often, they result in the opposite effect, causing an increase in the unhealthy or anti-social attitude or behavior targeted for change (Pechmann & Slater, 2005). This outcome is of broad concern to scholars of communication who are interested in understanding how messages can be misinterpreted or fail.

This chapter examines the literature for evidence of boomerang effects in response to strategic messages. We pay particular attention to the unintended effects of messages that attempt to change anti-social or unhealthy attitudes and behaviors. We synthesize theories of communication, persuasion, psychology, and education, and we discuss two distinct paths to the boomerang effect. Finally, we present a preliminary framework of boomerang effects.

Concepts and Terminology

The term strategic message has emerged from the broader field of persuasion to describe messages that are specifically conceived, constructed, and delivered with the clear intention to result in a specific effect (Piotrow & Kincaid, 2001; E. M. Rogers, 1995). Sometimes, the intended effect encompasses a change in attitude or behavior. For example, stakeholders design strategic messages with the specific intention of reducing smoking in adolescents, increasing voter turnout, selling a product, or lowering aggression.

In addition to intended effects, messages can result in many types of effects that are not intended (for a review, see Cho & Salomon, 2007). Intention guides message creators as they design and construct a message as well as scholars when they investigate message effects (Berger, 1995; Dillard, Anderson, & Knobloch, 2002). In this chapter, we synthesize evidence of, and explanatory mechanisms for, one type of unintended effect—a boomerang effect, which occurs when a strategic message generates the opposite attitude or behavior than was originally intended (Cho & Salomon, 2007; Hovland, Janis, & Kelly, 1953).

The boomerang effect can be documented by change within an individual due to message exposure, or in comparison to other individuals who were exposed to an alternative message, or no message at all. For example, if a media literacy intervention seeks to reduce a child’s desire for products that are advertised in television commercials, a boomerang effect would entail an increase in the child’s desire for the product beyond that which would have occurred without the intervention. We believe that one of the most serious implications of boomerang effects is that messages created with a pro-social intent can result in the targeted attitude or behavior becoming worse. While communicators create many messages with a pro-social intent, we also discuss messages without such positive intentions.

We should note that message creators may actually intend to elicit resistance to messages, what might be considered an intentional boomerang effect (S. S. Brehm & J. W. Brehm, 1981; Farrelly et al., 2002; Papageorgis & McGuire, 1961). Because we focus on understanding why messages sometimes result in the opposite effect than intended, resistance effects that are intended do not constitute the types of boomerang effects of primary concern to this review.

Finally, while messages may have intended effects and unintended effects, they can also result in null effects. However, in this chapter, we primarily investigate why strategic messages sometimes result in unintended effects, with a particular interest in explaining boomerang effects.

Evidence of the Boomerang Effect

This review of literature mainly centers on strategic messages created with intention of changing anti-social or unhealthy attitudes and behaviors. As stated in the introduction, strategic messages often function as a vehicle to persuade individuals to change certain attitudes or behaviors. However, people do not always comply, and they often do the opposite. We now review the evidence for the boomerang effect across multiple contexts.

Health Behavior Modification Campaigns

Media campaigns often strive to promote health promotion messages, usually with the aim of curtailing negative or dangerous health behaviors such as the abuse of drugs and alcohol or engaging in unprotected sex. Some of these messages have resulted in boomerang effects (Pechmann & Slater, 2005; Ring-hold, 2002). For example, boomerang effects have been reported in response to campaigns attempting to reduce smoking, alcohol consumption, and drug use (Crano & Burgoon, 2002).

Messages that intend to lower smoking behavior can actually increase smoking rates (Wolburg, 2006). Grandpre, Alvaro, Burgoon, Miller, and Hall (2003) found that 10th grade adolescents who viewed anti-smoking messages were more likely say that they would try a cigarette soon if they heard an explicit message telling them not to smoke than they would have been if they did not hear this type of message.

Several communication efforts aiming to lower both alcohol consumption and positive attitudes toward drinking have resulted in boomerang effects (Campo & Cameron, 2006; Foxcroft, Lister-Sharp, & Lowe, 1977; Gordon & Minor, 1992; Perkins, Haines, & Rice, 2005; Ringhold, 2002; Wechsler et al., 2003). For example, Wechsler et al.’s nationwide study of 118 colleges revealed that many formal attempts to reduce alcohol consumption through social norms campaigns resulted in an increase of alcohol consumption. Social norms campaigns attempt to reduce anti-social behavior by changing misconceptions about the prevalence of such behaviors (Cialdini, Kallgren, & Reno, 1991).

The social norms approach is not the only type of strategic message that has resulted in reports of increased drinking. A boomerang effect has been found in other types of strategic efforts, particularly those that advocate restrictions on individuals’ behaviors. For example, one study demonstrated that some college students, especially males who drink often, drank more alcohol directly after observing a message telling them to abstain from drinking, while similar students who heard a less restrictive message to drink “in moderation” did not exhibit this boomerang effect (Bensley & Wu, 1991).

Similarly, messages aiming to reduce drug use have, at times, had the opposite effect on viewers (Atkin, 2002). Fishbein, Hall-Jamison, Zimmer, von Haeften, and Nabi (2002) examined the effectiveness of 30 anti-drug public service announcements, and they concluded that humorous messages and messages that specifically target marijuana use hold the potential to result in a boomerang effect. This effect is not atypical. For example, Rosenbaum and Hanson (1998) concluded that suburban children who participated in project Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) use drugs significantly more through high school than both all urban participants and the suburban control group.

Health campaigns with the goal of promoting healthy behaviors also sometimes produce the opposite effect, where individuals are less likely perform the preventative behavior. This pattern has been found in reaction to some messages utilizing fear appeals (see Leventhal, 1971; Witte, 1992), such as the threat of death if a woman does not perform self-administered routine breast cancer exams (Kline, 1995; Kline & Mattson, 2000), interventions to promote healthy nutrition (Schwartz, Thomas, Bohan, & Vartanian, 2007), and safe sex campaigns (Priester, 2002).

The possibility of boomerang effects has also been a concern of suicide prevention efforts. In this area of research, the emergence of a boomerang effect is extremely risky because, if messages of suicide prevention glorify the act in the recipient’s mind or present it as normative, individuals might be more inclined to attempt suicide (Chambers et al., 2005). The line of research linking media coverage of suicide to an increase in the number of suicides led the Surgeon General of the United States (1999) to officially warn that suicide “can be facilitated in vulnerable teens by exposure to real or fictional accounts of suicide” (para 30). While it is obviously difficult to test for a boomerang effect directly, Chambers et al. argued that any suicide prevention campaign must first undergo careful evaluation because the message may unintentionally generate suicidal thoughts and behaviors.

Advertising

Messages intending to sell products can also backfire. In some cases, advertising has resulted in a dislike for the product or service being advertised (Petrova & Cialdini, 2005). For example, as Petrova and Cialdina asserted, ads with imagery appeal, or that ask people to imagine using a product, have been found to cause some people to be less persuaded than they would have been without the imagery request. Petrova and Cialdina determined a similar reaction if the vividness of a product, or photographic image, is “fuzzy” or dulled.

Boomerang effects also emerge at times in response to advertisements that attempt to play on the emotions of viewers (Campbell, 1995; Cotte, Coulter, & Moore, 2005). According to Cotte et al., viewers more likely hold a negative attitude toward an advertisement, as well as the sponsor, if they perceive the intent to manipulate their emotions.

Advertisements that are intended to promote political candidates and agendas have also sometimes resulted in boomerang effects, particularly in the case of negative advertising about an opposing candidate’s image or stance on an issue (Garramone, 1984; King & McConnell, 2003; Lau, Sigelman, & Rovner, 2007; Shapiro & Rieger, 1992). Additionally, when news reports called “adwatches” have critiqued negative political advertisements, individuals have tended to be more persuaded by the ad than they would have been if they had not been exposed to the critique (Ansolabehere & Iyengar, 1996; Pfau & Louden, 1994).

Entertainment-Education Efforts

Entertainment programs intentionally designed to enhance pro-social attitudes and behaviors can also lead to boomerang effects. Critics widely expected the popular CBS show, All in the Family, to reduce bigotry. Instead, bigots perceived the show to be “telling it like it is,” while liberals praised the show for its message of tolerance and the potential to spread pro-social effects. For both groups, watching the show reinforced their original beliefs (Vidmar & Rokeach, 1974), which sparked a boomerang effect with respect to an increase in bigoted beliefs.

Media messages that intend to sensitize viewers to rape myths have also resulted in boomerang effects under certain conditions (B. J. Wilson, Linz, Donnerstein, & Stipp, 1992...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Editor’s Introduction
• 1. The Boomerang Effect: A Synthesis of Findings and a Preliminary Theoretical Framework
• 2. Adapting Consumer Advertising Appeals to Cultural Values: A Meta-Analytic Review of Effects on Persuasiveness and Ad Liking
• 3. The Role of Message Tailoring in the Development of Persuasive Health Communication Messages
• 4. An Integrated Model of Knowledge Sharing in Contemporary Communication Environments
• 5. Communicating Quantitative Risk Information
• 6. Opening Up the Conversation on Genetics and Genomics in Families: The Space for Communication Scholars
• 7. Discourse, Gender, and the Meaning of Work: Rearticulating Science, Technology, and Engineering Careers Through Communicative Lenses
• 8. Crossing and Transforming Occupational and Household Gendered Divisions of Labor: Reviewing Literatures and Deconstructing Differences
• 9. Discourses of Volunteerism
• 10. Public Interest Media Advocacy and Activism as a Social Movement
• 11. Apologia, Image Repair, and Reconciliation: The Application, Limitations, and Future Directions of Apologetic Rhetoric
• About the Editor
• About the Contributors