Protect against skin cancer

Why does the topic of sun protection need to be addressed?

Whilst many people are aware that the sun causes skin cancer, it seems to be the case that many people do not tend to take it seriously. For example, as shown in Figure 1, Suppa, Cazzaniga, Fargnoli, Naldi and Peris (2012) found that only 13% of 1000+ Italian adolescents used sun protection despite having some knowledge of skin cancer. But why would people avoid putting sunscreen on if they know the dangers? Well whilst this seems shocking, it could be explained by the optimism bias. The optimism bias states that we tend to believe that bad things are less likely to happen to us compared to other people (Sharot, 2011). If this is the case, then we can’t really blame people for engaging in behaviours that have health risks if they are biased to think that it will never happen to them. However, it still frustrates me when I see people slathering oil on their bodies at the beach, as the consequences can be awful! So, I thought that if I can challenge the bias that people have by making them aware that anyone can get skin cancer, then people would think twice before spending their summer days unprotected in the sun… However, I didn’t just rely on this one technique - I included others which I will explain later on.

Figure 1. A figure to show the results from Suppa et al.'s study, showing the number of people who follow sun-safe practices in comparison to the number of people who have knowledge about skin cancer and the sun

So, what did I do?

I decided to make a short stop-motion video, using a variety of techniques to encourage behaviour change:

  

Theory of Planned Behaviour

When I was reading the literature on this topic, I came across Branström’s (2004) work which inspired some of the methods that I used in my video. Branström conducted research in relation to Ajzen’s (1991) Theory of Planned Behaviour, within the context of sun protection. He gave questionnaires to over 1700 people, and the findings relate to all three of the main components of the Theory of Planned Behaviour (1. Attitudes; 2. Subjective norms; 3. Perceived Behavioural Control), and I applied the theory and their findings to my project, as described below.

Figure 2 - A diagram of the Theory of Planned Behaviour

1.1 Attitudes: challenging positive attitudes

Branström (2004) found that positive attitudes towards tanning are strongly associated with intentional tanning. This is particularly problematic because research has found that our perception of tanned skin seems to be very positive. For example, Cho, Lee, and Wilson (2010) found that women tend to perceive tanned women as fit and fashionable, and having this positive perception is associated with having positive attitudes towards actual tanning behaviour. Therefore, in my video, I challenged the commonly-held positive beliefs associated with tanned skin by crossing the words out and pairing ‘tanned skin’ with ‘damaged’ instead, in order to increase negative attitudes and reduce positive attitudes so that people will be less likely to engage in tanning behaviour.

1.2 Attitudes: emphasising the risk

Crucially, Bramström (2004) also found that perceiving sunbathing as a risk to health is associated with the use of sun protection. Most campaigns have focused on delivering the information about correct sun protection but have tended to avoid focusing on skin cancer due to the fear of worrying people, but it is important to communicate risk in order for people to have a more realistic perception (Bränström, Kristjansson, & Ullén, 2005). Notably, actually changing risk perception consequently changes health behaviour, which further highlights the importance of communicating the risks (Ferrer & Klein, 2015). In light of these findings, I decided to emphasise the number of diagnoses in a year, the number of cases which are preventable, and end with the quote ‘anyone can get skin cancer’ to influence people’s perception of risk. Using the quote ‘anyone can get skin cancer’ specifically targets risk perception, and it addresses the optimism bias by making sure people realise that they are at risk too. I also repeated the risk-based message, as repeating a message can result in increased likeability and believability, and this is known as the mere exposure effect (Zajonc, 1968; Pratkanis & Aronson, 2001). Not only did I repeat the message, but I also mentioned the source of the message which was ‘The President of the American Academy of Dermatology’, as this increases the credibility, and messages from credible sources are more likely to lead to attitude change than messages from sources of lower credibility (Hovland & Weiss, 1951). By using these various techniques, I hope that people become more aware of the risk and change their attitudes (and subsequently their intentions and behaviour).

2. Subjective norms

The ‘subjective norms’ component is primarily based on social influence: if everyone around us is tanning, then that sets the belief of what is expected of ourselves, so we’re more likely to want to engage in tanning behaviour too. A recent example of research in which subjective norms influenced people's intentions was conducted by Wang et al. (2017). They asked participants to imagine that they had homework due the next day, but that they wanted to play games instead. Whilst imagining this scenario, they were asked to decide whether they intend to complete the homework, or play online games. The subjective norm was then introduced: they were asked to either imagine that their friends had invited them to play the game (the subjective norm is the perceived 'peer support' to play games) or to imagine that their parents think that they should be doing their homework instead of playing (the subjective norm is the perceived pressure to not play games). After this, they were asked the intention question again. It was found that the perceived peer support increased the likelihood of intending to choose to play games, whereas the perceived disapproval from parents significantly decreased the number of participants who intended to play games. This research highlights the effectiveness of subjective norms in influencing people's intended actions. Relating back to Bramström's study (2004), he also found links between subjective norms and behaviour. He found that participants who hang around those who spend time sunbathing were more likely to engage in intentional tanning themselves. With the concept of subjective norms in mind, I included the quotes from famous people who said that they cover up in the sun, as it demonstrates the acceptability towards covering up and this sets a new norm (away from the one in which tanning is normal) meaning that people are less likely to believe that tanning is expected, and more likely to believe that they are expected to protect themselves.

3. Perceived behavioural control (self-efficacy)

Both ‘self-efficacy’ and ‘perceived behavioural control’ are terms which are sometimes used interchangeably in the literature, and whilst a few researchers argue that there is a slight difference, the main concept is the same: if people feel that they are able to do something with ease, they are more likely to do it (Ajzen, 1991). Relating back to Bramström (2004) who inspired the methods I used in my video, he found that perceived behavioural control is associated with the use of sunscreen. But how do you increase perceived behavioural control or self-efficacy? Well, Ratner and Riis (2014) found that involving only a small number of steps in recommendations can increase self-efficacy, so that the behaviour is more likely to be performed. Therefore, I showed an image of a person on the beach demonstrating a few simple behaviours (holding sunscreen, going under an umbrella, and wearing more clothes), to show how simple it is to incorporate the health behaviours into the scenario. Furthermore, by including the quotes from celebrities who cover up, it shows that other people are able to do it, implying that they should be able to as well.

Moving from Intention to Behaviour

I wanted to keep my short video focused on a simple message because communication which involves simple and easy-to-visualise ideas are more appropriate and memorable for people who are non-experts in the topic area (Ratner & Riis, 2014). I also made sure that the context was very clear, providing environmental cues such as the sun and the beach. By including environmental cues, people are more likely to act on the information, and for this reason, the cues are also known as ‘action triggers’ (Heath & Heath, 2007). When the behaviour is triggered by an environmental cue, individuals are able to perform the action without using too much cognitive effort (Ratner & Riis, 2014). This increases the chances of intentions turning into behaviour when they find themselves in the appropriate scenario.

Whilst intentions do not always lead to the desired behaviour, I have still chosen to focus particularly on elements which lead to intentions through the Theory of Planned Behaviour. Trying to form an intention, as well as creating implementation intentions that come after the intention is formed, would have been quite a big task. Implementation intentions are 'if-then' plans which specify what behaviour you want to do, and when and where you will do it e.g. if someone wants to stop falling asleep on the sofa during the day, their if-then plan might be 'if I start to fall asleep on the sofa before 9pm, I will get up and drink a cup of coffee' (Gollwitzer, 1999).  However, suggesting if-then plans in my video would have been ineffective, and this is actually something that has been looked at within the context of sunscreen use. Craciun, Schuz, Lippke and Schwarzer (2012) found that intention plans work best for people who already have the intention to wear sunscreen, but those who do not intend to use sunscreen actually benefit from information regarding the risks, in order to increase awareness of the health problem. For this project, I posted the video in specific forums, such as ones in which people discuss tanning by exchanging tips and advice, as well as forums in which people discuss their holidays. As I specifically targeted people who are likely to already spend time tanning, it means that they are unlikely to have any intention of wearing sunscreen and protecting themselves from the sun. Therefore, I have focused on using attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioural control in order to build intentions to be safe in the sun. If the intention is strong enough, it will lead to the desired behaviour as shown in the Theory of Planned Behaviour diagram, and hopefully the action triggers will help with that too.

Persuading one person can have a knock-on effect…

Having just one person watch the video may have a bigger effect than just changing one person’s behaviour. For example, if it changes the attitudes and behaviour of someone who normally advocates tanning behaviour, they would probably stop posting positive posts about the health-damaging behaviour, and consequently, stop influencing others to tan. I hope that exposing tanning-advocates to a negative message about tanning makes them reconsider their behaviour, and maybe even go on to trying to persuade their friends to wear sunscreen too. Also, anyone who looks at the forum to read about tanning will also be exposed to my message, not just those who post on there, so over time, more people who are into tanning will see it. Overall, due to the nature of this project, an exact measurement of behaviour change is not possible - but I hope that when the sunny weather comes around this summer, people will take extra care of their skin after seeing my video! 

References


Ajzen, I. (1991). The theory of planned behavior. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 50(2), 179-211.


Branstrom, R. (2004). Attitudes, subjective norms and perception of behavioural control as predictors of sun-related behaviour in Swedish adults. Preventive Medicine, 39(5), 992-999.


Bränström, R., Kristjansson, S., & Ullén, H. (2005). Risk perception, optimistic bias, and readiness to change sun related behaviour. European Journal of Public Health, 16(5), 492-497.


Cho, H., Lee, S., & Wilson, K. (2010). Magazine exposure, tanned women stereotypes, and tanning attitudes. Body Image, 7(4), 364-367.


Craciun, C., Schuz, N., Lippke, S., & Schwarzer, R. (2012). Enhancing planning strategies for sunscreen use at different stages of change. Health Education Research, 27(5), 857-867.

Ferrer, R., & Klein, W. (2015). Risk perceptions and health behavior. Current Opinion in Psychology, 5, 85-89.



Gollwitzer, P. M. (1999). Implementation Intentions: Strong effects of simple plans. American Psychologist, 54, 493-503.


Heath, C., & Heath, D. (2007). Made to stick. New York: Random House.


Hovland, C., & Weiss, W. (1951). The Influence of Source Credibility on Communication Effectiveness. Public Opinion Quarterly, 15(4), 635.


Ratner, R., & Riis, J. (2014). Communicating science-based recommendations with memorable and actionable guidelines. Proceedings of The National Academy Of Sciences, 111(4), 13634-13641.


Sharot, T. (2011). The optimism bias. Current Biology, 21(23), R941-R945.


Suppa, M., Cazzaniga, S., Fargnoli, M., Naldi, L., & Peris, K. (2012). Knowledge, perceptions and behaviours about skin cancer and sun protection among secondary school students from Central Italy. Journal of The European Academy Of Dermatology And Venereology, 27(5), 571-579.


Wang, J., Liu, R., Ding, Y., Liu, Y., Xu, L., & Zhen, R. (2017). What Influences Chinese Adolescents’ Choice Intention between Playing Online Games and Learning? Application of Theory of Planned Behavior with Subjective Norm Manipulated as Peer Support and Parental Monitoring. Frontiers In Psychology, 8, 589.

Zajonc, Robert B. (1968). Attitudinal Effects of Mere Exposure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 9 (2, Pt.2): 1–27

The 1% Project

Did you know that the average student income, though it may feel small sometimes, is still over 9 times the global average income? (see Appendix). This means that even we, as students, can do a lot with our money to help those who aren’t as well off. It was this idea that motivated the 1% Project, a project aimed at encouraging students to donate just 1% of their summer student loan payment to a charity of their choice.

Students at Warwick are estimated to live on £790 a month (see Appendix). This isn’t much, but given how much richer they are than other people in the world, we thought that we could do more to encourage people to give more than they currently do to charity. Those with more financial means typically give higher amounts to charity (Bekkers & Wiepking, 2011) and "feeling poor" can make someone less likely to donate (Wiepking & Breeze, 2012), although some evidence suggests that those in lower-income brackets donate more than those in middle-income brackets (Silver, 1980; Bennet, 2012). While the evidence is unclear as to whether students would be more or less motivated to donate than other income groups, the relative size of our income indicates that it would be impactful to try to encourage more altruistic behaviour in the student population at Warwick.

The aim of this campaign was to attempt to elicit student donations at a time when they would be most comfortable giving. We decided that asking students to pledge to donate a portion of their summer student loan payment about one month in advance would best meet this goal. This is because pre-commitment strategies are effective for sticking to commitments we might otherwise be tempted to give up (Schelling, 1978). When an individual identifies with a particular behaviour or course of action, personal and interpersonal pressures cause them to behave consistently with it when making future decisions on how to behave (Salancik, 1977). Consistency is desired because it is associated with personal and intellectual strength - it is so powerful that it can even compel us to do things we wouldn’t ordinarily do (Cialdini, 2007).
We hypothesised that asking individuals to pledge to donate before their loan came in would lead them to act consistently with their pledge and motivate them to actually donate when the money came in.

In relation to charitable behaviour more specifically, evidence suggests that people donate more when they are asked to commit to future donations (Breman, 2011) and that charities can generate additional giving by introducing time in the giving process (Andreoni & Serra-Garcia, 2016). Other research shows that students donate roughly ⅓ more of a cash prize when asked before receiving the prize than when they were asked after (Kellner, Reinstein, & Riener, 2015), indicating that charities can use the principle ‘Give if You Win’. If students perceive their loan payments as some kind of ‘bonus’ or ‘prize’, which we hypothesise that they would, this would make them more likely to donate a portion of it.

However, not all evidence indicates that a pre-commitment strategy is the best method for eliciting donations. Gaudeal and Kaczmarek (2017) demonstrate that while making pledges the default can increase pledges, it may not increase donations because the nudge might only affect participants who are more or less indifferent between pledging and not pledging and who are thus unlikely to actually do the effort of translating their pledges into donations. However, this research involved a very small amount of money (€2) received as a reward for completing an experiment and did not allow the participants to choose which charity to donate to and so does not directly apply to our methodology. Nonetheless, this conflicting evidence somewhat decreased our confidence that pledging is the best way to elicit actual donations.

What we did and how
In order to recruit pledges, we first created a promotional poster, which was used in conjunction with emails sent out to various society members and posted on Facebook pages associated with the university.

Promotional poster

Promotional email

Persuasive techniques

1. Manded altercast

By telling the reader they are part of “a generous bunch” of people, they are given the identity of being the kind of person who donates to charity. Manded altercasting involves making an identity more prominent to the individual, and by doing so, the likelihood of them playing out the social role associated with the identity is increased (Weinstein & Deutschberger, 1963). 

The reader is also assumed to be part of an in-group of generous people, which includes the researchers who the email is from. Turner (1982) argued that members of our in-group exert persuasive influence through a process called referent informational influence, in which individuals conform to a group norm because it provides information about appropriate norms, enhancing our own certainty when we need to make a decision.

2.  Social proof

Stating that students “will be pledging to donate” this summer informs the reader that this is something other people, similar to themselves, will be signing up to take part in. This makes use of the technique of social proof - that we view a behaviour as more correct in a given situation to the degree that we see others performing it (Cialdini, 2007).

Deutsch and Gerard (1955) explain that this is due to two psychological processes:

(1) Providing information about what to do and think. Usually, when a lot of people are doing something it is the right thing to do. 

(2) Providing normative influences - due to social pressure to go along with the group.

According to Cialdini, social proof works best under conditions of uncertainty, because this is when we are most likely to look to others, and when it involves people we are similar to, as these people provide better insight into what is correct behaviour for ourselves.

3. Only 1%

By framing the donation amount as 1% of the loan, rather than the actual amount of between £10-15, the donation feels like a smaller loss to the student. Individuals react to a choice differently depending on how it is presented, as Pacini and Epstein (1999) showed that a ratio of larger numbers (e.g. 10 in 100) seems larger than the same ratio with smaller numbers (e.g. 1 in 10). Li and Chapman (2013) proposed the 100% effect - that 100% of a small number looms larger than 10% of a large number. This is because people focus on the apparent percentage presented, and tend to ignore the scope to which it applies. For our project, we assumed that a similar effect would apply to the even smaller percentage of 1%.

4. The visuals

According to the elaboration likelihood model of persuasion, there are two routes we can take when making decisions. The first is the central route, which requires carefully considering the information given and using it to form an argument, and occurs when the individual’s motivation and ability is high. Alternatively, the peripheral route takes places when an individual uses shortcuts to make judgments when their motivation or ability is low.

Morrison and Vogel (1998) provided evidence that computer-generated visuals impact the persuasiveness of a presentation because they align with both the central route and the peripheral route to persuasion. Visuals both provide relevant content related to the message, targeting the central route, and provide peripheral cues as information about source credibility and attitudes (Seiler, 2009). With regards to donation amounts, using digital methods can also increase the amount donated. Reinstein and Riener (2012) show that participants donated roughly twice as much of earnings for completing an experiment when the amount was presented on a computer screen rather than placed on the desk in cash, indicating that students will be more likely to donate if they are encouraged to do so via an online poster.

Online pledge form

Once they clicked the link, pledgers were taken to an online pledge form to fill out:

The pledge form assumes commitment from the pledger, again linking to the manded altercast technique, as the reader has been told that they have already decided to commit.

Finally, a day before the loans were due, a follow-up email was sent to everyone who had pledged to donate. At the beginning of the email, the reader is reminded that they have pledged to donate, and what a huge difference they are can make. Repeating these messages not only reinforces the other persuasion techniques contained in them, but increases believability, acceptance and liking due to the ‘mere exposure effect’ (Zajonc, 1968).

Follow up email

Although loans came in last week, pledgers weren’t given any time pressure to donate so although this means we are unable to measure the impact, we hope that when they do make the decision to donate, it will now be because they have make the internal choice to do so, rather than just complying to the norm. Internalisation is genuine acceptance, where behaviour is congruent with the individual’s true beliefs (Kelman, 1958), therefore this type of conformity is long-lasting. Pledgers were told that although this project is a one-off, their donation doesn’t have to be! We hope that they will be inspired to donate again in the future, even if they haven’t been able to do so this time.

Jess Taylor and Ollie Base

Appendix
The average student budget is £790/month, which is £9480/year (Save the Student, 2015). According to Giving What We Can (2014), this is over nine times the global average income.

References

Andreoni, J. and Serra-Garcia, M. (2016). Time-inconsistent charitable giving. Technical report, National Bureau of Economic Research.

Bekkers, R. and Wiepking, P. (2011). Who gives? A literature review of predictors of charitable giving. Part One: Religion, education, age and socialisation. Voluntary Sector Review, 2(3), 337–65.

Bennett, R. (2012). Why urban poor donate: A study of low-income charitable giving in London. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 41(5), 870–891. 

Breman, A. (2011). Give more tomorrow: Two field experiments on altruism and intertemporal
choice. Journal of Public Economics, 95, 11-12.

Cialdini, R. B. (2007). Influence: The psychology of persuasion. New York: Collins.

Deutsch, M., & Gerard, H. B. (1955). A study of normative and informational social influences upon individual judgment. The journal of abnormal and social psychology, 51(3), 629.

Gaudeul, A., & Kaczmarek, M. (2017). Does Nudging Intentions Translate into Action? Why Nudging Pledges to Charities Does Not Result in Increased Donations. Available at SSRN: http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3012455

Giving What We Can. (2014). How Rich Am I? Retrieved from: https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/get-involved/how-rich-am-i/

Kellner, C., Reinstien, D., & Riener, G. (2015). Stochastic income and conditional generosity. Dusseldorf Institute of Competition Economics. Available at SSRN: http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2691027

Kelman, H. C. (1958). Compliance, identification, and internalization three processes of attitude change. Journal of conflict resolution, 2(1), 51-60.

Li, M., & Chapman, G. B. (2013). A big fish or a small pond? Framing effects in percentages. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 122(2). 190-199.

Morrison, J., & Vogel, D. (1998). The impacts of presentation visuals on persuasion. Information & Management, 33(3). 125-135.

Pacini, R., & Epstein, S. (1999). The relation of rational and experiential information processing styles to personality, basic beliefs, and the ratio-bias phenomenon. Journal of personality and social psychology, 76(6), 972.

Reinstein, D., & Riener, G. (2012). Decomposing desert and tangibility effects in a charitable giving experiment. Experimental Economics, 15(1), 229-240.

Salancik, G. R. (1977). Commitment is too easy! Organizational Dynamics, 6(1), 62-80.

Save the Student. (2015). Student Money Survey 2016. Retrieved from: https://www.savethestudent.org/money/student-money-survey-2016.html

Schelling, T. C. (1978). Egonomics, or the art of self-management. The American Economic Review, 68(2), 290-294.

Seiler, W. J., (2009). The effects of visual materials on attitudes, credibility, and retention. Speech Monographs, 38(4), 331-334.

Silver, M. (1980). Affluence, Altruism, and Atrophy: The Decline of Welfare States. New York: New York University Press.

Turner, J. C. (1982). Towards a cognitive redefinition of the social group. Social identity and intergroup relations, 15-40.

Weinstein, E. A., & Deutschberger, P. (1963). Some dimensions of altercasting. Sociometry, 454-466.

Wiepking, P. and Breeze, B. (2012). Feeling poor, acting stingy: the effect of money perceptions on charitable giving. International Journal of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Marketing, 17(1), 13–24.

Zajonc, R. B. (1968). Attitudinal effects of mere exposure. Journal of personality and social psychology, 9(2p2), 1.

#WheresMyShade? Representativeness in makeup shades

We focused our project on raising awareness of the lack of diversity in make-up shades available in and around the Warwick university campus. Prior to starting our project, students from BAME groups, who represent 38.4% of students, were often unable to find make up in their shade on campus and had to travel as far as Birmingham (over 40 minutes away) to find make up in their shade.

The topic was particularly salient to us as a group because we come from different ethnic backgrounds, (White British, British African and British Asian), and share an interest in the beauty industry. Our first approach to tackling the issue, involved talking with Danielle, a representative from Warwick Anti-Racism society, and starting a Facebook poll to measure general interest levels.

Following this we arranged a meeting with Namir Chowdhury, the Ethnic Minorities Officer at the Students Union (SU). This allowed us to collect relevant statistics on the numbers of BAME students, and offered us a platform to pitch our ideas to representatives of the wider student body. When it was clear that Namir was on our side we sought insight from an external body.

This took the form of meeting Geoff Skingsley the chairman of L’Oreal UK and Ireland, the

world’s largest cosmetics company through a talk held through the Warwick Business School. We knew that L’Oreal produced a 28 shade make up range called “True Match” which was designed to match 98% of UK skintones and had an ongoing commitment to promoting diversity in the beauty industry. We had not considered, however, the extent to which providing a diverse range of make-up shades simply makes economic sense – a factor Mr Skingsley highlighted to us as we spoke to him on our project after the event.

Once we had enough background research to go into negotiations, we asked to speak to the manager of shops in and around campus e.g. Tesco, who failed to provide shades suitable for BAME customers, while stocking a wide range of shades for Caucasian skin tones. We took advice from Dale Carnegie’s book “How to win Friends and Influence People” and made sure to smile, use names, and clearly explain how adding more shades could be in their interest.

Unfortunately, after several unproductive phone calls with head offices of these stores (following referral by in-store employees), we came to realise that this could be a very long process, and decided to focus our attention on the on-campus Chemist. In meeting with the Chemist, we highlighted the issue of lack of inclusivity in the makeup shades available within the shop and pointed out that this did not align with Warwick’s commitment to diversity.  We waited after sharing the problem, allowing for him to fill the silence with an expression of agreement and desire to do what he could to bring about change. We then provided examples of more inclusive brands to contact to provide makeup stands. We exchanged contacts and emailed to-and-fro throughout the term, discussing difficulties he was having with the store’s suppliers. His agreement to keep us updated seemed to have invoked the desire to be consistent with this resolve to improve the range of shades available and eventually a preliminary more inclusive line of shades was introduced to the store. Upon receiving our feed-back he acknowledged that the brand of more inclusive makeup was of a lower standard than others sold in the store e.g. Bourjois, and committed to seeking to introduce a higher quality and more well-known brand such as Sleek.

More recently, we took part in a student radio show in order to raise awareness of our project, the issue of inclusivity and diversity more generally and to empower others to seek to make similar changes in their own local community. We are also looking into the possibility of having an article written by a Warwick alumni and journalist for the Sunday Times so keep your eyes peeled!

Also, our radio interview will be uploaded soon so watch this space...

Research Justifications

Landscaping – a.k.a. pre-persuasion, structuring the situation in a way that made the Chemist more likely to be positively receptive to our proposition (Pratkanis & Aronson, 2001). This was achieved by beginning the conversation by pointing out the lack of makeup for our shades (Divya and Debbie).

Negativity effect – our emphasis on the absence of available shades was a deliberate choice to create impact on the chemist’s evaluation of there not being provision for non-white students. This is supported by work by Hodges (1974), who found that negative information has a greater impact than positive information on individuals’ evaluations of others after subjects were provided with personality descriptors of people to evaluate.

Story-telling – this is providing a causal framework for evidence/facts. We shared the fact that there was a lack of diversity of makeup to the chemist through the framework of personal experience. Deborah and Divya drew attention to the likely lack of awareness/complaint made to him due to people of colour having low expectations and not recognizing our entitlement to visibility and inclusion in shade availability on campus simply accepting the need to travel further to find affordable makeup in our shades.

Source credibility and similarity altercast – we had carried our research prior to speaking to the chemist and were of the in-group (Abrams, Wetherell, Cochrane, Hogg and Turner, 1990) both of BAME students who were disadvantaged, and BAME individuals generally (like the chemist himself). This may have been influential as Berscheid (1966) found that similarity between the target and the influencer was effective in increasing influence if the similarity was relevant to the issue being promoted.

Public audience - we asked what the chemist could do about the lack of inclusive makeup when other customers and an employee were present in the store and observing our interaction with him. This was to apply findings by Rind and Benjamin (1994) who found that male shoppers who asked to purchase raffle tickets to support a nonprofit purchased almost twice as many tickets when with a female companion than when alone.

Using imagery to sell the idea – we emphasized the amount of business that would be garnered by an increase in BAME customers seeking affordable makeup if their shades were provided. This is supported by findings by Gregory, Cialdini and Carpenter (1982) who found that customers asked to imagine the benefits of personally having cable television and their potential enjoyment of it were 2 and a half times more likely to purchase a subscription from door to door salesmen than if they were merely informed of its benefits.

To summarise...

By Debbie, Divya and Elizabeth 

References

Abrams, D., Wetherell, M., Cochrane, S., Hogg, M. A., & Turner, J. C. (1990). Knowing what to think by knowing who you are: Self‐categorization and the nature of norm formation, conformity and group polarization. British Journal of Social Psychology, 29(2), 97-119.

Berscheid, E. (1966). Opinion change and communicator-communicatee similarity and dissimilarity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 4(6), 670.

Gregory, W. L., Cialdini, R. B., & Carpenter, K. M. (1982). Self-relevant scenarios as mediators of likelihood estimates and compliance: Does imagining make it so?. Journal of personality and social psychology, 43(1), 89.

Hodges, B. H. (1974). Effect of valence on relative weighting in impression formation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 30(3), 378.

Pratkanis, A. R., & Aronson, E. (2001). Age of propaganda: The everyday use and abuse of persuasion. Macmillan.

Rind, B., & Benjamin, D. (1994). Effects of public image concerns and self-image on compliance. The Journal of Social Psychology, 134(1), 19-25.

In video:

Malhotra, D., & Bazerman, M. H. (2008). Negotiation genius: How to overcome obstacles and achieve brilliant results at the bargaining table and beyond. Bantam.

Keep Track of Your Drinking!

Having studied at multiple universities now, we (Natalia and Lise) have noticed that drinking culture appears to be a big part of student life, no matter which country you study in. It is often forgotten that alcohol is a drug that affects both body and mind (National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, Niaaa.nih.gov, 2018).

Starting with the basics, alcohol puts a serious strain on your liver, causing various complications in the functioning of your liver such as steatosis, or fatty liver, alcoholic hepatitis, fibrosis or cirrhosis  (Niaaa.nih.gov, 2018). It also affects your brain’s communication pathways, which in turn makes you behave differently  (Niaaa.nih.gov, 2018). Long-term consumption leads to heart problems such as strokes, arrhythmia, high blood pressure and parts of your heart muscle giving out  (Niaaa.nih.gov, 2018). Another problem for chronic drinkers is an increased risk for cancer and pancreatitis, and a weakened immune system resulting from drinking also leaves one more vulnerable to diseases (Niaaa.nih.gov, 2018).

Drinking during adolescence is associated with brain damage and neurocognitive deficits (Zeigler et al., 2005). High-risk drinking, in other words consuming 4 drinks within about 2 hours for women and 5 drinks in the same period of time for men, also called binge drinking, is popular among young adults (Zeigler et al., 2005; Snyder, Kivlehan & Callopy, 2014) ).

Binge drinking is the main cause of alcohol poisoning (Snyder et al., 2014). Alcohol poisoning occurs when the liver can no longer metabolise the alcohol into non-intoxicating byproducts at the rate that it enters the bloodstream (Snyder et al., 2014) and its symptoms are recognised by about a mere one-thirds of university students (Haas & Flores, 2012). This is alarming, because unrecognised alcohol poisoning is left untreated, and this can lead to the death of the poisoned person (Voelker, 2015). This was the case for many people among the 8758 UK residents who died from alcohol-related causes in 2015 (Alcohol Concern, 2016). 

In an effort to raise awareness about alcohol poisoning, and get students to change their drinking behaviour, we have made a video we published online.

The goal was for students to keep track of their drinking, and our proposed way to do it is by tallying on your hand for every drink you consume. In order to appeal to Warwick students, the NHS statistics specific to this region were requested. The situation turned out to be subpar. The last four years, there have been 1316 young adults from 17 to 25 years old admitted to the hospital because of alcohol poisoning in South Warwickshire alone (University Hospitals Coventry & Warwickshire NHS Trust). The video specifically targets university students to help them drink responsibly. The video format helps get the message across because it’s the most common medium the target audience comes into contact with. For the same reason, the video starts with a Snapchat segment presenting a group of university students on a night out in a recognisable environment for Warwick students. The hospital filmed in the second part of the snapchat story is also tailored to Warwick students because that’s where they would be taken if they do get alcohol poisoning. The most informative part of the video comes after the snapchat segment and introduces the viewer to tactics they can apply when helping someone who has alcohol poisoning. This second segment utilizes behaviour change techniques to maximise the video’s impact.

The first technique is used throughout the video. Ellen Holmes, the Welfare and Campaigns Officer of the Student Union at the University of Warwick, recorded the voice-over. This augments the video’s impact because her position is well known among students. The fact that she is part of the university community and has the same experiences contributes to the effective message. According to Social Learning Theory (e.g. Bandura & Walters, 1977) and the Health Belief Model (Rosenstock, Strecher & Becker, 1998) role models may act as reinforcers, but only when the consequences are well understood by the audience. Thus, at the beginning of the video Ellen introduces the viewer to the topic, showing basic statistics and explaining what binge drinking is. Then, she introduces a threat by highlighting the negatives of being poisoned by alcohol. Finally, she concludes the video with a short exclamation: “Keep track of your drinking!” noting her full name and position later on.

In the beginning of the video, Ellen mentions “drinking is an integral part of university experience”. This calls on pre-existing beliefs and experiences of university students, who have been involved in this themselves. Doing this makes the video’s message more convincing to students who believe this to be true (Cacciopo, Petty & Sidera, 1982). This is our target audience, because people who don’t think alcohol is part of the university experience, may be less inclined to drink irresponsibly. Next, she encourages viewers to “think of how much they drink when they’re out circling”, which is not only referencing to pre-existing beliefs but also making the viewer visualise an amount of drinks that they usually have. They can compare this amount to the definition of binge drinking, which is given afterward.

A section laying out the statistics concerning the Warwick Uni area then serves as a fear appeal, which is later on followed by a high efficacy message. A high efficacy message is a recommended response to the threat that people perceive as effective and feasible (Witte & Allen, 2000). A fear appeal is a fear-arousing persuasive message (Peters, Ruiter & Kok, 2013) such as “in YOUR AREA, X amount of people YOUR AGE have ended up in the hospital for doing something YOU DO as well”. The combination of a fear appeal and a high efficacy message has been shown to result in the highest probability of behaviour change (Witte & Allen, 2000). The fear appeal serves to increase the belief that one is susceptible to a threat, and the proposed solution will determine whether one will try to control the threat or control their fear (Witte & Allen, 2000). A high efficacy message will motivate people to control the threat and not their fear of the threat (Witte & Allen, 2000). If there’s doubt about the efficacy of the response, or perceived low self-efficacy, people will do the latter through denial, avoidance or other coping mechanisms (Witte & Allen, 2000). The high efficacy message used in the video is an entire segment explaining what to do when someone you know has alcohol poisoning, and how to prevent it from happening in the first place. This should at the very least motivate people to look up the video or other aids in case they need to help someone with alcohol poisoning.

At the very end of the video, viewers are encouraged not to be irresponsible drinkers. It was deliberately worded this way because drinking irresponsibly is presented as a defining characteristic. Viewers don’t want to include “irresponsible drinker” their self-concept, and are therefore more inclined to change their drinking behaviour than if it were worded “don’t drink irresponsibly”. The latter seems very circumstantial and less consequential.

Unfortunately, one of the limitations of this project is that there is no way to keep track of the impact of our video. Whether people start tallying the amount of drinks they’ve had on their hand, is in their hands now. Moreover, there are various other factors in real life situations that will influence people’s drinking behaviour and that may cancel out our video’s message. A good example of this is social pressure or personal struggles. In the future, a more hands-on campaign may have a more visible impact. Campaigns that are held at parties, maybe involving the bartenders, could keep students’ drinking behaviour under control and may help them develop responsible drinking habits. More complex solutions that involve the participation of multiple institutions might have a bigger impact.

Lise Peeters & Natalia Bogacz

References:

Alcohol Concern. (2016). Alcohol statistics. [online] Available at: https://www.alcoholconcern.org.uk/alcohol-statistics [Accessed 11 Mar. 2018].

Alcohol Poisoning Deaths Hit Middle-Aged Men Hardest. JAMA. 2015;313(9):886. doi:10.1001/jama.2015.0700

Bandura, A., & Walters, R. H. (1977). Social learning theory (Vol. 1). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-hall.


Haas, A., Flores, S. (2012). College student awareness of signs of alcohol poisoning. Journal of Alcohol and Drug Education, 56, 59-76.
Snyder, S. R., Kivlehan, S. M. & Callopy, K. T. (2014). Acute alcohol poisoning. EMS world, Malvern, 43, 36-42.

nhs.uk. (2018). Alcohol poisoning. [online] Available at: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/alcohol-poisoning/ [Accessed 2 Mar. 2018].

Niaaa.nih.gov. (2018). Alcohol's Effects on the Body | National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). [online] Available at: https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohol-health/alcohols-effects-body [Accessed 7 Mar. 2018].

Peters, G. J. Y., Ruiter, R. A., & Kok, G. (2013). Threatening communication: a critical re-analysis and a revised meta-analytic test of fear appeal theory. Health psychology review, 7(sup1), S8-S31.

Rosenstock, I. M., Strecher, V. J., & Becker, M. H. (1988). Social learning theory and the health belief model. Health education quarterly, 15(2), 175-183.

Witte, K., &d Allen, M. (2000). A meta-analysis of fear appeals: Implications for effective public health campaigns. Health education & behavior, 27(5), 591-615.

Zeigler, D. W., Wang, C. C., Yoast, R. A., Dickinson, B. D., McCaffree, M. A., Robinowitz, C. B., & Sterling, M. L. (2005). The neurocognitive effects of alcohol on adolescents and college students. Preventive medicine, 40(1), 23-32.