The Cognitive Processing of Social Media Ads Containing Etiological Frames of Chronic Pain
Open Access
- Author:
- Di Russo, Carlina
- Graduate Program:
- Mass Communications
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- February 15, 2021
- Committee Members:
- Jessica Gall Myrick, Dissertation Advisor/Co-Advisor
Jessica Gall Myrick, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
Mary Beth Oliver, Committee Member
Michael Grant Schmierbach, Committee Member
Denise Sevick Bortree, Outside Member
Anthony Olorunnisola, Program Head/Chair - Keywords:
- information processing
health communication
social media
advertising - Abstract:
- In some chronic pain conditions, like fibromyalgia, the experience of pain may not stem from a structural abnormality in the body, but from neurobiological and psychological factors. Thus, for some, chronic pain’s etiology could be more related to the brain than to the body. However, physicians report that it is often difficult to communicate with patients about this type of chronic pain–-termed functional chronic pain (FCP) in this study––because patients may perceive the pain to be their own fault. To help understand why patients might react negatively to FCP information, this online experiment (N = 537) proposed and tested a series of cognitive responses that occur after receiving FCP information in a social media advertisement. A full factorial design tested how chronic pain’s etiological framing (psychological vs. neurobiological) and argument quality (weak vs. strong) influence information processing, the causal attributions of locus and controllability, defensive reactions, FCP attitudes, self-efficacy, and ultimately, information seeking intentions. Results suggest that etiological framing and argument quality did not, as predicted, lead to internal locus and controllability. However, weak argument quality increased information seeking intentions. Internal locus and controllability were positively associated with three of the five defensive reactions. Controllability was related to heuristic processing, and internal locus was related to systematic processing. For health professionals who communicate about FCP and other functional neurological disorders, the practical implications of this study suggest the need to emphasize that functional symptoms are not the individual’s fault, yet the individual does have agency over the symptoms. Symptom tangibility and argument quality may also influence message acceptance and information seeking.