Individual differences in persuadability in the health promotion domain

This paper examines the behavioral consequences of individual differences in persuadability in the health promotion domain. We use a 7-item persuadability instrument to determine participants persuadability score. Based on this score two groups are created: the low and high persuadables. Subsequently, we present 2 studies that test the responses to health-related persuasive messages of both low and high persuadables. The results consistently show that high persuadables comply more to messages with a persuasive content as compared to a neutral message than low persuadables. Even more, both studies indicate lower compliance by low persuadables when persuasive messages are employed. Implications of this possible detrimental effect of the use of persuasive messages for low persuadables are discussed.