ArticleFrontiers in public health2021
Humor and Fear-Two Sides of the Same Coin?: Experimental Evidence on Humor Appeals in Health Communication Related to Childhood Vaccination.
Article in Frontiers in public health, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
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Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed, 5 citations in OpenAlex.
- A qualitative study exploring Malaysian women's preferences for authority or emotional appeals in public health messages promoting breast cancer screening.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Promoting Vaccination in India through Videos: The Role of Humor, Collectivistic Appeal and Gender.Vaccines · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Until now, health communication has largely failed to debunk fears and caveats related to vaccination. This study aims to investigate the effects of different text types used in health communication in an experimental study design. A neutrally formulated text was compared to a humorous text using the formula of a fairytale. Overall, the study indicates no additional value in using the humorous format as an innovative and target-group-oriented approach to inform readers about scientific evidence related to vaccination. Although the effects of the two text types do not differ, the credibility of the neutrally formulated text was much more likely to be judged as high. This indicates that the perception of credibility is not the only criterion in health communication leading to knowledge gains and changes in health-related attitudes and behaviors.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.