SMCRD

This week’s class focused on the key elements of communication (Source, Message, Channel, Receiver, and Destination) and how theory shapes health campaigns.

One of the main points I took from this week’s lecture and readings is the importance of understanding your target audience. As health promoters we want to modify behavior and encourage our target audience to engage in healthy behaviors. In order to influence and ultimately change any behavior, we must understand who our target audience is, what they like, how they think, and who will best influence and motive them.

My favorite reading of the week was a piece on Dual Processing Persuasion. I remember reading about this when I was a psychology undergrad at UCSB, but I did not fully appreciate its message until now. Dual Process claims that people think in two different modes: systematic and heuristic. According to Dual Process, our way of thinking determines influence. A person who is thinking systematically is carefully thinking and looking for evidence, facts, and other arguments. On the other hand, a person who is thinking heuristically is not thinking very carefully at all, but rather skimming the surface for main ideas and cues. In order to influence behavior, we must understand which mode of thinking our target audience is using and then match the right influential tools (arguments or cues) with their mode.

Last but not least, lab was fantastic. Divided into groups we were asked to apply what we learned and develop health campaigns for different target audiences. My group was assigned to a campaign promoting physical activity for teens. Thinking about the power of social influence amongst most teenagers, my group decided that a celebrity speaker, and in particular Hannah Montana (Supposedly she’s a big teenage superstar?), promoting “Get fit with friends” would work quite nicely. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to the other campaigns, and once again saw the importance of designing messages according your target audience.