Persuading college students to refrain from abusing energy drinks : a test of message framing, argument type, and cognitive load.

Abstract

Within the past few years energy drink consumption has increased (Boyle & Castilleo, 2006) as well as mixing alcohol with energy drinks (Kapner, 2008). The current study examines the impact of persuasion (i.e., message framing and argument type) and cognitive load on susceptibility, perceived likelihood, and perceived benefit of energy drink and alcohol mixed with energy drink consumption, as well as healthy beverage selection. This experiment was a 2 message frame type (gain, loss) x 2 message argument type (one-sided, two-sided) x 2 cognitive load task (high, low) non-repeated measures design. When an analysis of covariance was utilized consumers of energy drinks chose energy drinks more often when given a two-sided argument compared to when they are given a one-sided argument, while abstainers of energy drinks are not persuaded by a one-sided or a two-sided argument type even when controlling for time since one last ate.