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February 11, 2026Acta PsychologicaOpen Access

Fear appeals amplify the continued influence effect of health wish rumor: Mediation of perceived efficacy

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Authors

XWXuying WangXJXiaokang JinYYYifan Yu

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Overview

Experiments reveal fear appeals boost reliance on health wish rumors, suggesting urgent strategies for public health.

Key Points

  • This research examines how fear appeals increase the impact of health wish rumors on public behavior and decision-making.
  • Conducted two experiments with a total of 180 participants.
  • Experiment 1: Compared misinformation corrections under fear appeals, general appeals, and no information.
  • Experiment 2: Replicated findings and identified perceived efficacy as a mediator through linear mixed models.
  • Fear appeal misinformation corrections led to significantly higher inference scores and purchase intentions compared to no misinformation controls.
  • Perceived efficacy fully mediated the increase in purchase intentions due to fear appeals.
  • Perceived threat did not show a mediating effect.

Cite This Study

Wang et al. (2026) studied this question.

synapsesocial.com/papers/698c1bb8267fb587c655d901https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2026.106418
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Also Consider

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  1. 1Unveiling the Mechanisms of Online Health Rumor Dissemination: The Effects of Content Feature and Presentation Cues (Preprint)2024
  2. 2Unveiling the Intricacies of Health Rumor Belief in Public Health Emergencies: A Cognitive Perspective2025 · 2 citations
  3. 3Psychological manipulation mechanisms of false fitness and supplement information and public health risks: from information manipulation to behavioral decision-making2026
  4. 4Putting the fear back into fear appeals: The extended parallel process model1992 · 3,915 citations
  5. 5Presumed Influence of Health Misinformation’s Threat to Others and Intentions to Correct it on Social Media: The Mediating Role of Emotions and the Moderating Role of Perceived Closeness2025