Framing prefactual affective posts about vegetable consumption

Previous research has shown that message persuasiveness can depend on message framing. Through an experimental study, we investigated the effects of messages promoting vegetable consumption on recipients with different baseline intention to change their food choices. Persuasive messages were framed in terms of prefactual (“If… then”) gain or non-loss. Method. A sample of young adult participants (N= 94) completed a questionnaire measuring their baseline intention to eat vegetables regularly. They were then presented with Facebook posts regarding the consequences of vegetable consumption. Posts were formulated as prefactuals and were focused either on the emotional positive outcomes that may be obtained through vegetable consumption (gain posts) or on the emotional negative outcomes that may be avoided through vegetable consumption (non-loss posts). After reading the posts, participants reported their attitude, anticipated regret and intention