The Framing Effect Boosts Weight Management Actions: The Impact and Mechanism of Target Framing on Behavioral Intention in Weight Management Actions

Objective: To explore the influence effect, mechanism and boundary conditions of the target framing on public’s willingness to engage in weight management actions. Methods: Study 1 adopted a single-factor (target framing: loss, gain, control) inter-subject survey experiment to explore the influence effect and mechanism of the target framing on public’s willingness to engage in weight management actions. Study 2 employed a 2 (target framing: loss, gain) ×2 (interpretation level: concrete, abstract) inter-subject survey experiment to analyze the moderating effect of information interpretation level on the aftereffect of the target framing. Results: 1) Both of the loss framing and the gain framing can directly enhance the willingness to engage in weight management action, and the effect of the loss framing is more significant. 2) The loss framing and gain framing can also indirectly enhance behavioral willingness by strengthening health risk perception and self-efficacy in weight management, among which the mediating role of health risk perception is stronger. 3) The level of information interpretation has a moderating effect on the aftereffect of the target framing. When the information interpretation is relatively abstract, the influence of the target framing on behavioral willingness and self-efficacy is significantly weakened; but when the information interpretation is more specific, the influence will be significantly enhanced. Conclusions: By integrating the decision-making psychology, cognitive process and subjective beliefs of individuals in the framing effect into the design of weight management mobilization information, and through making good use of the framing effect to boost, skillfully leveraging behavioral decision-making psychology, and deepening the application of specific information, it is possible to leverage a relatively large behavioral response with a relatively small information input, thereby promoting the quality improvement and efficiency enhancement of weight management actions.