User:04noodle/Boomerang effect (psychology)

(user: emiann1x1) Below is a paragraph copied from article.]  I would like to expand on this concept including recent studies of mental health public service announcements during the COVID pandemic.

user: emiann1x1 (below, in bold, is what i'd like to add to our article)

Persuasive health communication
The Boomerang Effect has also shown up in different public health campaigns. In the 1980s, more campaigns for seat-belt laws were happening around the country. In addition, more laws were also being put in place. However, this was met with mixed reactions. While seatbelts started being put into cars in 1968, there were very minimal laws endorsing the use of them. Around the late 1970s and into the 1980s, only 14 percent of Americans consistently wore their seat-belts (37 ).American citizens believed the addition of these seat-belt laws was resistance towards their rights in a free society. For example, when state representative David Hollister introduced that there would now be a monetary fine if a driver is found not wearing a seatbelt, he received hate mail comparing him to Hitler (36 ).

https://www.history.com/news/seat-belt-laws-resistance https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/810962

Current Research
Alex Kresovich conducted a 2022 study which examined the influence of opo culture artists. The study conducted multiple surveys using US youth (ages 16-24). Kresovich examined how pop music artists who discuss mental health problems affect their younger audiences. The information was retrieved from the years 2017-2021. The survey method was used to experiment if contemporary pop music artists would be the most efficient spokespeople about this issue. The study had two different rounds of experiments. Firstly, Kresovich tried using footage from pop artist's mental health campaigns. In this footage, Kresovice categorized two different types of language being used to address the audience (direct language versus mis-targeted language). The second round of experiments focused more on if relaying the mental health information in a positive way would be more effective in relating to the younger audience.

For the first set of experiments, Kresovich used footage of direct language versus mis-targeted language (referring to the audience as "you" versus more personally as a friend). The findings suggest that using celebrities in public service messages to discuss mental health issues like depression and advocating for support would cause the boomerang effect in its reached audience. In fact, using this strategy with celebrities as the spokesperson increased the stigmatized beliefs in the US youth.

For the second round of experiments, Kresovich showed the celebrities that used more positive associations to depression in order to view it more positively. However, this action led to an increase in stigma and depression romanticizing from the young audience, both of which are consequential responses to the public health campaign (35).

Current Examples
The boomerang effect takes place all around us in our lives. When you tell a toddler to not touch the flowers on the table or to pet the cat nicely, they turn around and knock the flowers over and yank on the cat’s tail. A study was done by Xiomeng Fan, Fengyan Cindy Cai, and Galen V. Bodenhausen on zero pricing incentives in consumer demand. In this study, the comparison of a zero price versus a low price on consumers. The hypothesis was that zero pricing effects depend on the incidental costs that are associated with it. Once the study was finished, the conclusion was that zero pricing ended up raising consumer demand, when the incidental effects are lower. The boomerang effect plays into this because zero pricing incentives can go either way, it all depends on which way they are advertised. If they are advertised with lower incidental costs, zero pricing is less effective because consumers are not risking anything on lower cost, more common items.. When incidental costs are higher, zero pricing incentives are also higher because consumers are not risking anything on nicer, higher priced items.

COVID-19 is an extremely relevant and current example of the boomerang effect. Mask wearing and social distancing were very prevalent situations that were encouraged and enforced in the height of the pandemic. However, there were many groups of people who refused to follow the suggestions, and later the mandates. There were billboard ads, commercials, signs, and many more different kinds of visual and audio messages for the public to wear a mask if they needed to go out and to maintain a distance of six feet between others at all times in order to minimize the spread of the virus. This did not work for everyone because there was always a group of people who refused to wear a mask when they went grocery shopping, and it resulted in other angry customers or the refusal of service from the business. The boomerang effect was demonstrated every day during the COVID-19 pandemic because of the opposite reaction that was given from the advertisements. The CDC would put out a video to raise awareness for raising a mask, and those who did not agree would do the opposite and refuse to put a mask on, both indoors and outdoors.

Although a bit more dated than the previous two examples, a third example of the boomerang effect is the Murray-Darling Basin. This basin idea was thought of due to a long term drought in Australia from 1997-2009. There was a group created for the advocacy and creation of the basin, but it did not turn out as planned. The members of this authority group made it their mission to bring awareness to the public of all the good that the basin can help create and to help with water allocations across the country. The basin was meant to help in future drought scenarios to prevent the issues that arose during the most recent drought and water issues. However, those outside of the authority group saw other economic, social, and environmental issues that would arise with the making of the basin. The boomerang effect is demonstrated here because the authority group sent out messages advocating for all of the positives of the basin, but the opposite message was taken and the public saw more of the negative outcomes. The boomerang effect comes from reactance theory because the audience's view shifts in the opposite intended direction; and comes from cognitive dissonance because message's worldview may not match with the viewer's, so it gets bounced the opposite way https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03637751.2020.1813317?casa_token=Oas8VRbjnuwAAAAA%3AMhzgpNNqMi32WC0oXlJG_BuLrJcY671jupbMSUBOf9hmv57c8KjvVxnHqvKV6Xc1hzGpI3N-w3Aw)

The Murray-Darling Basin planning was thrown for a loop when uncertainty rose with environmental, social and economic concerns with the creation of the basin. The original message was to create the basin to help with the drought scenarios, but other, more doubtful, concerns arose instead of generating excitement for the solving of one issue (https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8500.12051)