13 Applications of Persuasive Hope Theory
Alejandra Salazar, Auston L. Vreeland, Amber K. Worthington, & Parker Yeates*
*Authors names are listed in alphabetical order; all authors contributed equally to this chapter
Hope appeals, specifically Persuasive Hope Theory (Chadwick, 2015), are explained in detail in Chapter 12. Persuasive Hope Theory can be used to design messages to try to persuade college students to get adequate sleep, reduce food insecurity by accessing a university’s food bank, and recycle. Examples on these topics are provided below by Alejandra Salazar, Parker Yeates, and Auston L. Vreeland, respectively.
Example by Alejandra Salazar
Persuasive Hope Theory can be used to persuade college students to sleep adequate amounts in order to promote academic success. A persuasive hope appeal message would need to influence students’ perceptions of opportunity and efficacy.
Perceptions of opportunity include perceived importance, goal congruence, possibility, and future expectation. The example message above states that adequate sleep is a vital part of a college student’s life and can positively influence academic success. This message content focuses on how the opportunity to achieve academic success through adequate sleep would affect college students, which can increase perceived importance.
The example message also focuses on how the opportunity impact’s a college student reader’s goals. College students all share a similar goal, which is to achieve academic success. The message above states that “college students sleeping 7+ hours a night are reported to have considerably higher GPAs…”. This message content can therefore increase perceived goal congruence.
Perceived possibility message content includes information that states that it is possible for the message reader to achieve the desired future outcome. The message above notes that sleeping 7+ hours may be difficult to manage; however, the message also states that it is something that can be accomplished and “…it is possible to do so in the future by…” This message content can increase perceived possibility.
The example message above also contains content designed to increase perceived future expectation. The message should say explicitly that the future will be better, which is included in the statement: “By following these recommendations you can get 7+ hours of sleep a night, waking up refreshed and ready to take on the day!”.
Perceptions of efficacy include response efficacy and self-efficacy. The example message above states that “college students sleeping 7+ hours a night are reported to have higher GPAs than students getting less than 6 hours.” This explicitly states that the recommended behavior, getting adequate sleep, will help achieve the desired future outcome of academic success, which can increase perceived response efficacy.
The example message above also provides strategies to make enacting the recommended behavior, adequate sleep, easier. This includes the sugge