ABSTRACT Considerable research has been done in the past on the relationship between health message effectiveness and recipients’ characteristics, such as motivations and involvement. However, the role of the recipients’ beliefs about locus of control belief on health message effectiveness has not been fully explored. This study attempts to extend prior literature by examining the moderating role of individuals’ chronic and temporary locus of control on message framing effectiveness. It posits that preexisting locus of control and message framing will have interaction effects on message persuasiveness. The current research used two experimental studies to test this assumption in the context of obesity. The first experiment found that individuals with high chronic internal locus of control were more likely to enhance behavioral intentions when they were exposed to individual responsibility messages than social responsibility messages. This observed effect only occurred when individuals were also low in chronic external locus of control. However, individuals with high chronic external locus of control were not more persuaded by social responsibility messages than by individual responsibility messages, even though they were also low in chronic internal locus of control. The second experiment demonstrated that locus of control can be temporarily primed. It found that there was a congruity effect between primed locus of control and responsibility framing. This effect was found for individuals in both high and low cognitive load conditions. Overall, this study is the first to examine the moderating effects of both chronic and temporary locus of control on message effects. It provides some evidence in support of the need to tailor health communication messages to the individual’s locus of control. It also extends research on health message framing from traditional valence framing to responsibility framing. Such a new approach has the advantage of allowing researchers to examine health issues not only at an individual level, but also at societal level. The results of this study can also have important practical implications as many of today’s health issues, such as smoking and binge drinking, are often discussed and interpreted in terms of both individual and social factors.
