The Congruency Effects of Multiple Components of Persuasion: Target Framing, Gain-Loss Framing, and Regulatory Focus

Construal level theory (CLT) explains that people construe realities differentially based on the psychological distance between themselves and the realities. Informed by CLT, this study investigated how congruencies between mental representations of different message and recipient components influence individuals' responses. Specifically, it examined how message target (self vs. others) effects vary depending on the use of gain-loss framing and individuals' regulatory focuses, using an experiment with 800 respondents in the social distancing context. Results indicated that promotion-focused individuals are more likely to find others-targeted messages more effective, interesting, and easy to process, which further affected behavior-related responses. By contrast, the results showed that prevention-focused individuals are more likely to perceive self-targeted messages as easier to process, which also influences their behavior-related responses. This study contributes to the development of target framing theory and expands the current message design literature by revealing the potential mechanisms through which multiple message components interact.