Identifying Effective Components of Alcohol Abuse Prevention Programs: Effects of Fear Appeals, Message Style, and Source Expertise

Abstract

Despite the importance of alcohol abuse prevention programs, the effectiveness of many components of these programs was not demonstrated empirically. An experiment tested the efficacy of 3 components of many prevention programs: fear appeals, 1- vs. 2-sided message style and the expertise of the source. The persuasive impact of this information was examined on 113 ninth-grade students'' intentions to abstain from drinking alcohol while they are teenagers. Fear appeals are successful in strengthening students'' intentions to refrain from drinking. Implications are discussed for implementing these principles and for designing future investigations of alcohol abuse prevention programs.