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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Commun.
Sec. Health Communication
Volume 10 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fcomm.2025.1512440
Reactance and Norms in a Highly Collectivist and Compliance-Oriented Society
Provisionally accepted- King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
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The purpose of this study is to test the theories of communication about health crises and theories of persuasive health communication that have been applied to COVID-19 in a different cultural context in order to understand these theories need to be adapted for a global pandemic. In order to explore this realm, the conceptual framework established by the theory of planned behavior is expanded by adding two components. The first component is to understand the role of compliance and the way it interacts with psychological reactance. The second component is to understand the role of collectivism in the way it interacts with the subjective norms component of the integrated model. By utilizing message cues, this study used an experimental design to empirically test whether using the norms and compliance cues affect behavioral intentions to follow government-enforced health policies to contain COVID-19. A between-subjects experiment was conducted with random assignment to one of three conditions: a health message with language of compliance, a health message with a norm cue, and a control health message without either of these treatments. In order to test the hypotheses of this study, two samples were recruited. One was from King Saud University (KSU) students and the other sample was from University of Missouri (Mizzou) students. The results of this study led to conclude that cultural differences do exist, but the tools to theorize about these differences need to be developed and refined.
Keywords: cultural contexts, psychological reactance, Social norm, Health crises, Subjective norms, Follow health policies
Received: 16 Oct 2024; Accepted: 21 Mar 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Alhugbani. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Hessah F Alhugbani, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.