Simulation Heuristic - How IT Is Affected By Other Heuristics

How It Is Affected By Other Heuristics

A study done by Philip Broemer was done to test the hypothesis that the subjective ease with which one can imagine a symptom will be affected by the impact of differently framed messages on attitudes toward performing health behaviors.

By drawing on the simulation heuristic, he argued that the vividness of information is reflected in the subjective ease with which people can imagine having symptoms of an illness.

- His results showed that the impact of message framing upon attitudes was moderated by the ease of imagination and clearly supported the congruency hypothesis for different kinds of health behavior. Finding that, negatively framed messages led to more positive attitudes when the recipients of these messages could easily imagine the relevant symptoms. Ease of imagination thus facilitates persuasion when messages emphasize potential health risks. A positive framing however, leads to more positive attitudes when symptom imagination was rather difficult.

Therefore, a message with a reassuring theme is more congruent with a recipient’s state of mind when he or she cannot easily imagine the symptoms whereas a message with an aversive theme is more congruent with a recipient’s state of mind when he or she can easily imagine having the symptoms .