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JOHN J. WHEATLEYnd SADAOMIOSHIKAWA*

Advertising appeals that arouse an appropriate amount of emotional tension canbe successful in achieving desired attitudinal changes. For some members of an audi-ence the appropriate amount of emotional tension may apparently be achieved bymeans of negative appeals while others respond better to positive appeals.

The Relationship Between Anxiety and Positiveand Negative Advertising Appeals

INTRODUCTIONA key element in any advertisement is the nature ofits appeal. For a few products or services the choice ofan appeal is to a large extent predetermined,but for mosteither postitive or negative appeals can be used.' Adver-tising practitioners tend overwhelmingly to prefer pos-tive appeals. On the other hand, psychologists interestedin the general problem of communications effectivenesshave tended to take the opposite approach, and the bulkof their work has been concerned with the effectivenessof anxiety or fear-arousing communications on the be-havior of those who receive them [6]. Significantly,thesebehavioral scientists have compiled a considerableamount of evidence that suggests advertisers may beoverlooking or minimizing an important method ofpersuading their customers to buy and that negativecommunication can be quite effective in inducing the be-havior advocated by the communicator [2].

CONCEPTUAL AND EXPERIMENTALCONSIDERATIONSStimulus-response reinforcement theory has beenused to provide a conceptual framework for some of thesignificant research conducted on communications effec-tiveness by psychologists. Very briefly, and at the risk of

oversimplification, this approach asserts that any stim-ulus presented to an individual is associated with a partic-ular response if that response is followed by psycholog-ical reinforcement, i.e., drive stimulus reduction [5].Psychologists have shown that a negative message whichsucceeds in arousing anxiety or fear creates a secondary

drive and a reduction of the fear or anxiety thus createdhas been shown to constitute an effective kind of rein-forcement [10, 11]. The significance of this theoreticalformulation from an advertising standpoint lies in thefact that under these circumstances, learning-and con-sequently attitudinal and behavioral change on the partof the message recipient-can take place.If a recipient's emotional tension is appropriatelyaroused by a negative communication the person in-volved will attempt to reduce his or her anxiety level, forexample by searching for some kind of reassurance. Theexact nature of the attempt will depend on a number ofcircumstances. If, for example, psychological reinforce-ment in the form of a recommended course of actionperceived to be reassuring is also presented as part ofthe message, it may lead not only a reduction in emo-tional tension, but to conformity to the communicator'srecommendation. The person receiving the message islikely to rehearse silently the reassuring part of themessage and to visualize himself being relieved of theanxiety caused by the communication [6, pp. 60-6].Since reassuring recommendations reduce anxiety, theyare learned and tend to become habitual responses, sub-sequently affecting attitudes and later behavior. When-ever the subject matter of the message again comes toattention, the recipient will tend to remember the re-assuring recommendation unless intervening learning ofa different sort has taken place.The degree of anxiety aroused by a particularmessagewill also affect the response pattern of the recipient. Itis generally agreed that a communication must, if it is to

* John J. Wheatleyis Associate Professor of Marketing,Uni-versityof Washington.Sadaomi Oshikawa s AssistantProfessorof Marketing,Universityof Washington.

1Negative appealsmay be defined as those that warn aboutan annoying,repulsive,or uncomfortablesituationthat might beexperienced as a result of not buying or using the advertisedproduct or service. Positive appeals, on the other hand, arethose that describe the useful, beneficial, or desirable conse-quences of buying or using the advertisedproduct or service.85

Journal of Marketing Research,Vol. VII (February1970), 85-9

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86 JOURNALOF MARKETINGRESEARCH,EBRUARY970be effective, be strong enough to arouse the recipient toa "drive state" but not beyond that point. A moderatelystrong anxiety-arousing communication is more effec-tive in eliciting an appropriate response than one thatis stronger, in the sense of being more anxiety-arousing.Similarly, a low level of anxiety arousal is also less ef-fective than a moderately strong one in obtaining con-formity to a communication's recommendation.Individuals differ with respect to their general anxietylevel, and an individual with a pre-existing high anxietylevel subjected to an anxiety-arousing communicationmay make unrelated random responses to reduce his orher anxiety or resort to what are generally referredto asdefense mechanisms. "The principal defenses are re-pression, projection, reaction formation, fixation andregression. All defense mechanisms have two charac-teristics in common: first, they deny, falsify or distortreality; second, they operate unconsciously so that theindividual involved is unaware of what is taking place"[3]. The development of extreme anxiety may literallyparalyze the communicatee or do no more than impressthe recipient's memory with the anxiety arousing aspectof the communication. Strong anxiety-arousingmessagesare capable of being both memorable and yet quite in-effective in terms of modifying the recipient's behaviorin the intended manner. Such messages focus the re-cipient's attention on the threat, while somewhat lessforceful communications focus attention on other as-pects of the message such as the reassuring course ofaction advocated by the originator of the message [8].Only the observations made here about the effective-ness of fear-arousing communications have been dealtwith experimentally by psychologists. Yet, a person withan already high pre-exposure anxiety level might re-spond better to a positive appeal than a negative appealbecause such an individual is likely to distort or shutout the fear-arousing message, thereby preventing anyreassuring recommendation in it from reducing anxietylevels. A reassuring positive appeal should lower theindividual's already high anxiety level from the outsetand would presumably lead to acceptance and, there-fore, greater effectiveness from the communicator'spoint of view.Thus anxiety may produce emotional tension and ef-fectively arouse in the recipient a sense of need whichis, of course, an essential ingredient in the persuasivecommunications process. Effective communication uti-lizing a negative appeal calls for "moderate" anxietyarousal and emotional tension on the part of the indi-vidual at whom the comunication is directed. Psycho-logical reinforcement in the message, as a means ofanxiety reduction, should from a theoretical standpointachieve adherence to the course of action recommended.Experimental evidence suggests that explicit assurancesin a communication can be effective in reducing anxiety[9]. Conversely, positive appeals should be more ef-fective in influencing highly anxious individuals. This

line of reasoning, representing a speculative extensionof previous work, suggests two experimentally testablehypotheses:1. Moderately trongnegativeappealsare more effec-tive than positive appeals in communicatingwithlow anxiety ndividuals.2. Moderatelystrongpositive appealsare more effec-tive than negative appeals in communicatingwithhigh anxietyindividuals.

EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDUREThe first stage of the experiment involved the devel-opment of suitable communications to serve as stimuli.Messages in the form of advertisements by a tradeassociation were written by the authors with the helpof several colleagues and a copy director in a commer-cial advertising agency. The positive and negative ap-

peals were made as much alike as possible. They bothdealt with the same subject and were approximatelyequal in length. Care was taken to emphasize in thepositive copy the desirable consequences resulting fromthe use of the advertised product, while the undesirableconsequences of failing to use the product were empha-sized in the negative copy.The copy developed in this manner was then testedto determine whether respondents agreed that it waspositive or negative as intended and to determine thestrength of the appeal. This approach required severalcopy revisions. The final draft used in the experimentwas exposed to a group of 50 students, 25 of whomevaluated the negative and the remainder the positivecopy. The bulk of the students regarded the appealsappropriatelyas moderately positive or moderately neg-ative.The next step involved ascertaining the pre-exposureattitudes of 154 students in another class toward lifeinsurance, the subject of the advertisement. This wasdone by means of six semantic differential scales. Thescales used were good-bad, useless-useful, negative-posi-tive, wise-foolish, repelling-attracting, and approve-dis-approve. These scales are all high in the evaluativedimension or factor and, therefore, appropriatemeasure-ments of the respondent's attitude toward the stimulus[12]. The scores reported were developed by means ofa simple scale that involved assigning cardinal numbersto the seven response choices. A value of seven was as-signed to the favorable words, i.e., good, useful, positive,wise, attracting, and approve. A value of four repre-sented a neutral reaction and a value of one was as-signed to the unfavorable side of each scale, i.e., bad,useless, negative, foolish, repelling, and disapprove.This evaluation was followed by a 25-minute lectureon an unrelated subject. At the end of the lecture thestudents were given the advertising copy. Half receivednegative copy and half positive copy. They were askedto read it once at their normal reading speed. This stepin the experimental procedure represents the subject's

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RELATIONSHIPETWEENNXIETYND POSITIVEND NEGATIVEDVERTISINGPPEALS 87Table 1

MEANATTITUDEHIFTAND STANDARD EVIATIONaLow anxiety group High anxiety group Total groupAppeal Mean shift Standard Mean shift Standard Mean shift Standarddeviat ion deviation deviation

Positive -0.519 4.85 0.381 1.43 0.130 3.35Negative 0.591 1.47 0.000 3.49 0.273 3.18Sample size 49 47 154

a The low anxiety group was arbitrarily determined as consisting of experimental subjects who scored in the lower third on theinstrumentused to measuresubject anxiety level. The high anxiety group had scores that placed them in the upper third. Essentiallythe same results as shown here were obtained when high and low anxious subjects were defined using the upper and lower quartilesinstead.response to the experimental stimulus of the message.The second measurement of the students' attitude to-ward the subject of the advertisement was then takenwith the same six semantic differential scales, in differ-ent order and with the polar positions reversed on sev-eral of them.Then the respondents were asked to complete Sara-son's Lack of Protection test to measure their anxietylevels [1]. This instrument measures the respondent'sfeeling of being unprotected and unable to cope withnovel and threatening situations.2 The anxiety scores ofindividuals taking the test can be used to rank indi-viduals in terms of the extent to which they indicateexperiencing anxiety in particular circumstances (e.g.,"As a youngster, I remember 'playing sick' in order toget out of doing something I was afraid to do" and "Ihave always found it difficult to be frank with peoplewhen I know they won't like what I have to say.")

Anxiety scores of the subjects in this experiment werecompared with scores of other undergraduateswho hadtaken the same test for other purposes. No statisticallysignificant difference was found between mean scoresfor the various groups or between anxiety levels of thoserespondents who had been exposed to the positive ap-peal and those exposed to the negative appeal. In otherwords, the stimulus itself did not have a measurableeffect on the reported anxiety level of the respondents.RESULTS OF THE EXPERIMENT

The results of the experiment are shown in Table 1.Both the positive and negative copy brought about asmall positive attitude shift. However, when the re-spondents were divided into low anxiety and high anxi-ety groups, the attitude shifts that took place weregreater and in conformance with the experimental hy-pothesis. The group in the low anxiety category ex-

posed to the negative copy experienced a more favorableattitude shift than those who were shown the positivecopy. The same was true also but in reverse for the highanxiety subjects who responded more favorably to thepositive copy than they did toward the negative copy.The general finding held, as might be expected, on most,though not all of the individual semantic scales for eachgroup.The results also clearly indicate that, contrary to ex-pectations, the positive appeal had a favorable effecton some subjects in the low anxiety group. The negativeappeal also had the same effect on the attitudes of someindividuals in the high anxiety group. One possible ex-planation lies in the subject's perception of the stimulus:although the copy was judged to be appropriately mod-erately positive and moderately negative, some of thestudents used to judge the copy viewed the negativecopy as positive and the positive copy as negative. Akind of perceptual distortion whose cause is unknownmay be at work. A second possibility might involve theexistence of another non-uniformly distributed influ-ence, such as product ownership or the respondent'sage or level of maturity, which interacts with anxietyand the type of appeal used to produce the observedresult.The implication of this speculation from an advertis-ing point of view is the not-so-startling conclusion thatthe type of appeal used in an advertisement is not theonly factor bringing about favorable attitude change.It is an important component in the communicationsprocess, but it must be admitted, conceivably not themost important one in some circumstances.Applying the t-test, the mean differences in attitudechange are not statistically significant at the .05 level.However, for the low anxiety group the difference be-tween the mean attitude change of the subjects whowere exposed to the positive appeal and the mean atti-tude change of those who were exposed to the negativeappeal could be accounted for on the basis of chanceonly 15 times in 100.This experiment represents a replication, with certainmodifications in the procedures used, of two other at-

2 As is often the case in trying to measure an individual'spsychological state, a number of different techniques can beused and no one of them may be regardedas "best."The choiceof this test was essentiallyarbitraryand can be defended onlyon the groundsthat none of the other available instrumentswasmore suitable for this experiment or more likely to producebetter results.

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88 JOURNALOF MARKETINGRESEARCH,EBRUARY970tempts to verify the same hypotheses. In the other ef-forts the hypotheses were also confirmed, although onceagain the results were not statistically significant at the.05 confidence level [13].The students in the experiment were certainly nottypical users of the product, although 49% did ownsome life insurance in their own name. Non-owers whomight have been expected to have a greater sense ofneed or what might be termed "product specific" anxi-ety [14], apart from anxiety as a general personalitytrait, responded more favorably than did insuranceowners to both types of appeals. The pre-stimulus meas-urement of the respondents' attitudes toward life insur-ance revealed very favorable attitudes-so favorable, infact, that they left little room for improvement. Hadanother subject about which attitudes were more neutralbeen chosen, the results might have confirmed the ex-perimental hypotheses more convincingly. The use ofmore or different semantic scales to measure attitudechange could conceivably also have helped.On the other hand, it is probably unrealistic to ex-pect a large attitudinal change as the result of a singlecommercial message about an important and familiarproduct or service [4]. The experimental design itselfmay also have contributed to the smallness of the atti-tude change. It has been pointed out that in the before-after experimental procedure respondents may be en-couraged to be consistent in their answers to questionsdealing with their attitudes "because having once beenforced to give an answer, their opinion tends to becrystalized and repeated" [7].The results are not conclusive, but they offer tentativeconfirmation of the proposition that a significant pro-portion of an advertiser's audience may be motivatedby arousing emotional tension through a negative ap-peal to accept the course of action advocated in a mes-sage. It suggests that opportunities probably exist forthe successful use of negative appeals in advertising. Atthe very least, additional work appears justified. Theheavy reliance of most advertisers on positive appealsmay provide those who are ready to innovate by usingnegative appeals with a real opportunity, since not allmembers of an audience can be assumed to be suffi-ciently motivated to respond favorably to a positive ad-vertising appeal. Many potential customers may simplybe low anxiety individuals and/or persons who do notfeel any anxiety or sense of need for many products orservices. With the passage of time and the achievementof higher real incomes there may be an increasing num-ber of consumers in the latter category.

EXHIBIT A-POSITIVE COPYWhen you marry and start a family, it is natural foryou to want to provide financial protection for yourloved ones. The only way for most people to make suretheir family is provided for is through a sound insuranceprogram.

If you want to make sure that your children will re-ceive a college education, why not let life insurancehelp you? With one of the variety of life insurance plansavailable today, you can be sure they will have themoney when they need it.With a life insurance policy, you can also borrow ata low interest rate when an unexpected emergency oc-curs-an extra measure of security which you will enjoyand your family will appreciate.Life insurance can also be an important and reliablemethod of saving. The proper insurance plan can guar-antee you a pre-planned amount when the policy ma-tures, or when you retire, or an income that will enableyou to enjoy life-long financial independence and se-curity.Your life insurance is more than just protection. Itis an investment: a working investment. Even if youwant a few of the things that make life more fun-a tripto Europe, maybe a summer cottage-a life insurancepolicy can help you to bring these dreams to life.So why put it off? Life insurance can help you providesecurity for the future-protection for your family, re-tirement income for yourself, cash for emergencies; andput more fun into your life. Won't you see your lifeinsurance agent today?

The Institute of Life InsuranceEXHIBIT B-NEGATIVE COPY

When you marry and start a family, it is natural foryou to want to provide financial protection for yourloved ones. As long as you live and keep your health,you can usually provide this extremely important pro-tection by the income your receive from your job. Butyou may die young. Life insurance is the only way mostpeople can make sure that their family will be providedfor in the event of an early death.Of course, nobody expects to die young. You mightsay to yourself, "Otherpeople may die young-not me,"but it can happen to you. Death often stalks those whoappear to be strong and healthy-at an early age.If tragedy strikes, will your family be provided for?Will they be able to maintain a decent standard ofliving? Will your wife be able to keep your home? Willyour children be able to complete their education?Without life insurance you are passing up one of thebest methods of saving and you cannot look forward tothe important money that a policy could provide whenit matures.Delay in startinga life insurance program is improvi-dent. It means that you will have to pay much higherpremiumswhen you eventually decide to secure a policy,if you can insure yourself at all at an older age.The hazards of not starting your life insurance pro-gram now are overwhelming. So why put it off andworry? Life insurance can help you provide security forthe future-protection for your family, retirement in-

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RELATIONSHIPETWEENNXIETYND POSITIVEND NEGATIVEDVERTISINGPPEALS 89come for yourself and cash for emergencies. Won't yousee your life insurance agent today?

The Institute of Life InsuranceREFERENCES

1. E. B. Adams and I. G. Sarason, "Relations Between Anxi-ety in Childrenand Their Parents,"Child Development, 34(March 1963), 244-5.2. L. Berkowitz and D. R. Cottingham, "The Interest Valueand Relevance of Fear-Arousing Communications,"Jour-nal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 60 (January 1960),37-43.3. Calvin S. Hall and Gardner Lindzey, Theories of Person-ality, New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1957, 49.4. Jack B. Haskins, How to Evaluate Mass CommunicationsNew York: AdvertisingResearch Foundation, 1968, 54.5. Ernest R. Hilgard, Theories of Learning, (2nd ed.), NewYork:Appleton-Century-Crofts,nc., 1956, 128.6. Carl I. Hovland, Irving L. Janis and Harold H. Kelley,Communication and Persuasion, New Haven: Yale Uni-versityPress, 1953.,7. Carl I. Hovland, Arthur A. Lumsdaine and Fred D. Shef-

field, Experiments on Mass Communications, Princeton:PrincetonUniversityPress, 1949, 312.8. I. L. Janis and W. Milholland, "The Influence of ThreatAppeals on Selective Learningof the Content of a Persua-sive Communication," Journal of Psychology, 37 (January1954), 75-80.9. G. A. Kimble, Principles of General Psychology, NewYork: RonaldPressCo., 1956, 238-9.10. N. E. Miller, "Studies of Fear as an Acquirable Drive:Fear as Motivation and Fear Reduction as Reinforcementin the Learning of New Responses," Journal of Experi-mental Psychology, 38 (February 1948), 89-101.11. O. H. Mowrer, "A Stimulus Response Analysis of Anxietyand Its Role as a Reinforcing Agent," Psychological Re-view, 46 (November 1939), 553-65.12. C. E. Osgood, G. J. Suci and P. H. Tannenbaum, TheMeasurement of Meaning, Urbana: University of IllinoisPress, 1957, 190-1.13. Sadaomi Oshikawa,"An Experimental Study of the Com-parative Effectiveness of Positive and Negative Appeals inWritten Life Insurance Advertisement",unpublished DBAdissertation, Graduate School of Business Administration,Universityof Washington,1965, 237-40.14. Walter A. Woods, "PsychologicalDimensions of ConsumerDecision,"Journalof Marketing,24 (January 1960), 18.