Effects of Health Responsibility Frames on Attributions, Emotions, and Social Support Intentions in the Context of Dementias

Berlekamp, Mara ; Reifegerste, Doreen und Temmann, Linn Julia (2024): Effects of Health Responsibility Frames on Attributions, Emotions, and Social Support Intentions in the Context of Dementias. In: Health Communication, Vol. 39, No. 13: pp. 3159-3169

Abstract

When news stories cover health and diseases, they often address issues of responsibility. These respon-sibility frames can affect recipients’ responsibility beliefs (i.e., attributions) and thereby affect emotionsand motivations to support people affected by health problems. To date, it is not fully understood howresponsibility frames affect these attributions, emotions, and social support intentions in the context ofdementia. In an online experiment with N = 1,059 German participants, we tested the effects of differentresponsibility frames (individual vs. contextual) on social support intentions through responsibilityattributions and emotional reactions in the context of dementia. Results show that responsibility framesaffect responsibility attributions and social support intentions. Mediation analysis shows that the effect ofcontextual responsibility frames on social support intention is partially mediated by responsibilityattribution and emotions (sympathy and anger). We discuss these findings considering framing effectsresearch and media coverage.

• Item Type: Journal article
• Faculties: Social Sciences > Department of Communications and Media (IfKW)
• Subjects: 300 Social sciences > 380 Commerce, communications and transportation; 600 Technology > 610 Medicine and health
• ISSN: 1041-0236
• Language: English
• DFG: Gefördert durch die Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - 404881979