ArticleHuman communication research2023
Beliefs as causal mediators in the design of communication interventions: exploring semantic and affective priming in parallel encouragement designs.
Article in Human communication research, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 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.
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Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- Interpersonal Communication and Maternal Behavioral Practice: A Case Study of Explanatory Causal Machine Learning in Nepal.The Journal of nutrition · 2026Article
- Critical Considerations for Using Cultural Targeting and Tailoring in Health Communication Interventions.Health communication · 2025Article
- Preconceived beliefs, different reactions: alleviating user switching intentions in service failures through priming GenAI beliefs.BMC psychology · 2025Article
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
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Abstract
The design of communication campaigns to alter health behaviors often begins with the identification of behavioral beliefs assumed to be causal antecedents of behavioral intentions. The assumption beliefs are causal derives from various theories of belief and intention/behavior and from statistical patterns of correlation. In cases of high-risk/cost campaigns, presuming causal order should require additional evidence. One approach is the parallel encouragement design which involves "randomly encouraging" levels of the mediator to establish its causal linkage to the outcome. This study proposes and tests a novel method of randomly encouraging beliefs as the mediator of messages on intention. Results show that semantic priming altered misbeliefs about Natural American Spirit cigarettes which in turn influenced intentions, suggesting its utility as an encouragement method to establish causal mediation of beliefs in message effects models. Results for countercampaign messages and broader theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
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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.