Tainted by Stigma: The Interplay of Stigma and Moral Identity in Health Persuasion
研究消费者道德身份与风险因素污名如何交互影响健康信息效果，发现高道德身份者在低污名时更易遵从，而高污名会削弱这一效应，并测试了自我肯定和去污名化干预策略。
The current research examines the interactive effect of consumers’ moral identity and risk factor stigma on health message effectiveness. The authors theorize that engaging in advocated health behaviors has moral associations; however, a stigmatized risk factor in a message “taints” the morality of the advocated health behavior. Thus, consumers with high (vs. low) moral identity are more likely to comply with health messages when risk factor stigma is low, and this positive moral identity effect is undermined when risk factor stigma is high. The authors test stigma's threat to moral identity by measuring defensive processing (Studies 1 and 2) and the attenuating effect of self-affirmation on the negative effect of stigma (Studies 3 and 4). They apply the stigma-by-association principle to develop and test a messaging intervention (Study 5). The studies suggest that, depending on whether a health message contains stigmatized risk factors, marketers could employ a combination of tactics such as activating moral identity, offering self-affirming message frames, and/or highlighting low-stigma risk factors to bolster message effectiveness.