Neurocognitive factors in the processing of persuasive health messages: the interplay between individual characteristics and physiological reactivity

• Autores: Valerie N Rodríguez Hernández
• Directores de la Tesis: Alicia Salvador Fernández-Montejo (dir. tes.), Vanesa Hidalgo (codir. tes.)
• Lectura: En la Universitat de València ( España ) en 2024
• Idioma: español
• Número de páginas: 214
• Tribunal Calificador de la Tesis: Esperanza González Bono (presid.), Laura Espín López (secret.), Carolina Villada Rodríguez (voc.)
• Programa de doctorado: Programa de Doctorado en Neurociencias por la Universitat de València (Estudi General)
• Menciones:
  • Internacional
• Calificación: Sobresaliente Cum Laude
• Materias:
  • Ciencias económicas
    • Economía sectorial
      • Sanidad
• Enlaces
  • Tesis en acceso abierto en: TESEO
• Resumen

  • Persuasion is a type of social influence that aims to change a person's beliefs, attitudes, or behaviors by providing information on an issue. Attempts to persuade can be made by an individual, a group, or a social entity, such as a marketer, a political party, or a health enterprise. Our objective was to explore how the individual characteristics and physiological reactivity of the recipient are related to the processing of health messages. We chose to study three persuasive strategies based on the Aristotelian rhetoric and with well-differentiated perspectives: Ethos (authority of the source), Pathos (emotions and empathy), and Logos (the logic of the argument). In this line, this Doctoral Thesis pursued four specific aims. Firstly, to evaluate through a self-reported assessment which persuasive strategy seems more convincing. Secondly, to explore how individual characteristics (social dominance orientation (SDO), neuroticism, and perceived stress) affect health messages processing. Thirdly, to explore the cardiovascular (Heart Rate Variability, HRV) and neurophysiological (Event-related potentials, ERPs) responses to different persuasive strategies. Fourth and lastly, to examine how EEG resting state (rsEEG) differs depending on the Need for Cognition (NFC), determining whether spectral power bands in rsEEG serve as predictors of memory performance (exploring NFC groups separately), and if NFC influences the recall and recognition of persuasion strategies. For this, two studies were conducted: an online survey with 310 participants and an in-person experimental phase with 66 participants.

    The main results of this Thesis were, firstly, that Ethos was assessed as the most persuasive strategy in both studies. Secondly, SDO was negatively related to the messages that appeal to emotions and empathy, both in the self-reported assessment and P300 amplitude. In addition, for youths with higher perceived stress, a lower HRV was associated with a better assessment of the Logos strategy. Neuroticism, in contrast, had no effect. Thirdly, the Ethos strategy elicited a larger P300 amplitude, while there was a lower HRV during the exposure to the messages, regardless of the type of strategy, compared to the blocks of baseline and startle tone. Lastly, individuals with high NFC were characterized by lower delta power, and for them, lower delta power predicted better message recognition. In addition, individuals with high NFC better recalled messages appealing to logic, while low NFC individuals better recalled messages evoking emotions. In sum, this Doctoral Thesis adds valuable insights to the psychophysiology of persuasion and sheds light on unexplored individual characteristics in the research area, offering an understanding of how diverse traits influence the processing of persuasive health messages.