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The effect of disease anthropomorphism on compliance with health recommendations

  • Original Empirical Research
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Abstract

The present article examines how disease anthropomorphism affects compliance with recommendations for preventing the disease. We find that consumers are more likely to comply with health recommendations when the disease is described in anthropomorphic (vs. non-anthropomorphic) terms because anthropomorphism increases psychological closeness to the disease, which increases perceived vulnerability. We demonstrate the effect of disease anthropomorphism on health compliance in seven studies with several diseases (COVID-19, breast cancer), manipulations of anthropomorphism (first person and third person; with and without an image), and participant populations (the US and China). We test the proposed pathway through psychological closeness and perceived vulnerability with sequential mediation analyses and moderation-of-process approaches, and we rule out alternative accounts based on known consequences of anthropomorphism and antecedents of health compliance. This research contributes to the theory and practice of health communication and to the growing literature on how the anthropomorphism of negative entities affects consumers’ judgments and behaviors.

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Notes

  1. COVID-19: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/Yu6AbvDJnmb0_aWKHjBCfA; Mucus/Mucinex: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGltaIqro-g; “Cells at Work!”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ek39M_lYUtE.

  2. Study 3a included many questions that assessed multiple constructs, so we followed Leung, Kim, and Tse (2020) and conducted confirmatory factor analysis to determine whether the constructs were distinct. Results showed that all items loaded on the intended factor, and the average variance extracted (AVE) exceeded .50 (psychological closeness = .64, perceived vulnerability = .59, arousal = .65, vividness/concreteness = .56, perceived control = .66). Fornell and Larcker’s (1981) test also revealed that all AVEs were higher than the shared variances of .33, confirming that the measures represented distinct constructs.

  3. We conducted Study 3b before Studies 2 and 3a, and unfortunately, we did not think to measure whether participants had received a professional breast screening within the last year.

  4. As in Study 3a, we conducted confirmatory factor analysis for the items measured in Study 3b. Results showed that self-efficacy and response efficacy loaded on a single factor (which we combined into “efficacy”), but all other items loaded on the intended factors. The AVEs exceeded 0.50 for psychological closeness (.60), perceived vulnerability (.66), and perceived severity (.68) but not efficacy (.33). Fornell and Larcker’s (1981) test revealed that the AVEs of the first three variables exceeded the shared variance of .33, but the AVE of efficacy did not. One item in the efficacy measure (“To what extent do you believe that getting breast cancer is inevitable, and there is very little you can do to avoid it?”) exhibited weak correlations with the remaining items, which accounted for the relatively low reliability score. We kept this item in the analysis, but the results are qualitatively the same if we exclude it.

  5. CDC Statement on President’s Fiscal Year 2022 Budget: https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/s0528-fiscal-year-2022.html.

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Funding

This research was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 71972169) awarded to the first author, and by funding from the Richard M. Clewett Endowed Professorship, Kellogg School of Management, awarded to the second author. All authors contributed equally to this research. The authors’ names are listed in reverse alphabetical order.

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  1. School of Management, Zhejiang University, 310058, Hangzhou, China

    Lili Wang

  2. Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA

    Maferima Touré-Tillery

  3. Booth School of Business, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

    Ann L. McGill

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Wang, L., Touré-Tillery, M. & McGill, A.L. The effect of disease anthropomorphism on compliance with health recommendations. J. of the Acad. Mark. Sci. 51, 266–285 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-022-00891-6

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