Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2021 Apr 9;21(1):693.
doi: 10.1186/s12889-021-10689-w.

Are need for affect and cognition culture dependent? Implications for global public health campaigns: a cross-sectional study

Min Zhang  1 , Bei Zhu  2 , Chunlan Yuan  2 , Chao Zhao  3 , Jiaofeng Wang  1 , Qingwei Ruan  1 , Chao Han  1 , Zhijun Bao  1   3 , Jie Chen  4 , Kevin Vin Arceneaux  5 , Ryan Vander Wielen  5 , Greg J Siegle  6
Affiliations

Are need for affect and cognition culture dependent? Implications for global public health campaigns: a cross-sectional study

Min Zhang et al. BMC Public Health. .

Abstract

Background: Cultural differences in affective and cognitive intrinsic motivation could pose challenges for global public health campaigns, which use cognitive or affective goals to evoke desired attitudes and proactive health-promoting actions. This study aimed to identify cross-cultural differences in affective and cognitive intrinsic motivation and discuss the potential value of this information for public health promotion.

Methods: A cross-sectional survey using cross-culturally validated need for affect (NFA) and need for cognition (NFC) scales was carried out among 1166 Chinese participants, and the results were compared with published data from 980 American participants. Additionally, we assessed a highly prevalent symbolic geriatric health condition, hearing loss, in 500 Chinese community-dwelling seniors. The Chinese NFA scale was developed following the translation-back translation procedure, and the psychometric evaluation was performed by applying confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), exploratory structural equation modeling (ESEM), correlation analysis and multigroup invariance test. MANOVA and Hedge's g statistic were employed to compare the NFA and NFC levels between individuals from different countries and between Chinese seniors with and without hearing loss. The relation of early hearing intervention intention to NFA and NFC was also explored in the Chinese sample.

Results: A basic two-factor model of NFA adequately fit the sample data from Chinese and American cultures. The questionnaire demonstrated reasonable invariance of the factor structure and factor loadings across the groups. Those in the primary Chinese sample had lower NFA and NFC than their American peers. This difference held in the senior sample. Moreover, Chinese seniors with hearing loss had even lower NFA and NFC than those without hearing loss. Their early hearing intervention intention was low but was associated with intrinsic motivation.

Conclusions: The Need for Affect (NFA) construct may be generalized beyond its Western origins. There was a general lack of affective and cognitive intrinsic motivation in Chinese individuals, particularly in seniors with hearing loss, compared with their American peers. These differences point to a potential challenge in framing effective messages for some cultures in the geriatric public health domain. Ideally, recognizing and understanding this challenge will inspire the consideration of novel persuasive strategies for these audiences.

Keywords: Cultural differences; Global public health campaign; Intrinsic motivation; Need for affect; Need for cognition.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests. The audiometric assessment results were discussed with those who were identified as having hearing loss. Information about audiology clinic appointments was provided.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
The one-level two-factor model of the 10-item Need for Affect scale. Items within each latent factor were allowed to correlate. Cross-loading was constrained to zero
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Comparisons of the NFA subscale mean scores across different cultural samples. The r values indicate the correlation between the approach and avoidance scores. * indicates significance at an α level of .05
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Density plot of the NFA approach and avoidance scores of the Chinese and American samples. The fit lines represent the correlation between the approach and avoidance scores in each sample
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Comparing NFA approach, NFA avoidance and NFC between Chinese seniors with and without hearing loss. Error bars represent ±1 SE
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Haddock G, Maio GR, Arnold K, Huskinson T. Should persuasion be affective or cognitive? The moderating effects of need for affect and need for cognition. Personal Soc Psychol Bull. 2008;34(6):769–778. doi: 10.1177/0146167208314871. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Conner M, Rhodes RE, Morris B, Mceachan R, Lawton R. Changing exercise through targeting affective or cognitive attitudes. Psychol Health. 2011;26(2):133–149. doi: 10.1080/08870446.2011.531570. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Strauss K, Parker SK, O'Shea D. When does proactivity have a cost? Motivation at work moderates the effects of proactive work behavior on employee job strain. J Vocat Behav. 2017;100:15–26. doi: 10.1016/j.jvb.2017.02.001. - DOI
    1. Aquino A, Alparone FR, Pagliaro S, Haddock G, Maio GR, Perrucci MG, et al. Sense or sensibility? The neuro-functional basis of the structural matching effect in persuasion. Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci. 2020;20:536–550. doi: 10.3758/s13415-020-00784-7. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Teeny JD, Siev JJ, Briol P, Petty RE. A review and conceptual framework for understanding personalized matching effects in persuasion. J Consum Psychol. 2020. 10.1002/jcpy.1198.

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources