Papers by Verolien Cauberghe
Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine, 2012
Despite cancer patients' extensive use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), validated... more Despite cancer patients' extensive use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), validated instruments to measure attitudes, and beliefs predictive of CAM use are lacking. We aimed at developing and validating an instrument, attitudes and beliefs about CAM (ABCAM). The 15-item instrument was developed using the theory of planned behavior (TPB) as a framework. The literature review, qualitative interviews, expert content review, and cognitive interviews were used to develop the instrument, which was then administered to 317 outpatient oncology patients. The ABCAM was best represented as a 3-factor structure: expected benefits, perceived barriers, and subjective norms related to CAM use by cancer patients. These domains had Eigenvalues of 4.79, 2.37, and 1.43, and together explained over 57.2% of the variance. The 4-item expected benefits, 7-item perceived barriers, and 4-item subjective norms domain scores, each had an acceptable internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha) of 0.91, 0.76, and 0.75, respectively. As expected, CAM users had higher expected benefits, lower perceived barriers, and more positive subjective norms (all P < 0.001) than those who did not use CAM. Our study provides the initial evidence that the ABCAM instrument produced reliable and valid scores that measured attitudes and beliefs related to CAM use among cancer patients.
Communication Theory, 2014
Over the years, reasons for playing digital games have been studied from a variety of perspective... more Over the years, reasons for playing digital games have been studied from a variety of perspectives. A systematic, theoretically and empirically grounded conceptual framework which takes into account the specificity of gaming as a contextualized social, rule-based, narrative, and systemic practice has hitherto been lacking however. This paper proposes such a framework based on social cognitive theory and elaborated on by means of 37 in-depth interviews. Understanding digital play is conceptualized as a reciprocal system of play behavior, individual factors, and environmental aspects. This approach offers a flexible framework for understanding determinants of playing games in a variety of contexts while taking into account the specific characteristics of the medium.
Healthcare, 2017
In order to activate women to participate in breast cancer screening programs, a good understandi... more In order to activate women to participate in breast cancer screening programs, a good understanding is needed of the personal characteristics that influence how women can be activated to search for more information, consult friends and doctors, and participate in breast cancer screening programs. In the current study, we investigate the effect of six personal characteristics that have in previous research been identified as important triggers of health behavior on breast cancer screening activation: Health awareness, Need for Cognition, Affect Intensity, Breast cancer knowledge, Topic involvement, and the Perceived breast cancer risk. We test the effect of these factors on four activation variables: intention of future information seeking, forwarding the message to a friend, talking to a doctor, and actual breast cancer screening attendance. Additionally, we try to unravel the process by means of which the antecedents (the six personal characteristics) lead to activation. To that end, we test the mediating role of perceived breast cancer threat, perceived efficacy of screening, and the evoked breast cancer anxiety as mediators in this process. The data were collected by means of a cross-sectional survey in a sample of 700 Flemish (Belgium) women who were invited to the free-of-charge breast cancer population screening. Screening attendance of this sample was provided by the government agency in charge of the organisation of the screening. Health awareness, affects intensity, topic involvement, and perceived risk have the strongest influence on activation. Breast cancer anxiety and perceived breast cancer threat have a substantial mediation effect on these effects. Efficacy perceptions are less important in the activation process. Increased health awareness and a higher level of perceived risk lead to less participation in the free of charge population based breast screening program. Implications for theory and practice are offered. The limitation of the study is that only a standard invitation message was used. In future research, other types of awareness and activation messages should be tested. Additionally, the analysis could be refined by investigating the potentially different activation process in different subgroups of women.
Restoring reputations in times of crisis: An experimental study of the
This study investigates the persuasion knowledge of children of integrated advertising formats, m... more This study investigates the persuasion knowledge of children of integrated advertising formats, more precisely of product placement, advertiser funded programming (AFP) and advergames. Based on qualitative research with 42 children (between 4-12 years old) the results show that children have difficulties recognizing and understanding the persuasive intention of the integrated commercial content. Especially for product placement this seemed to be hard, for all age groups. The ad recognition and understanding of AFP was highest. For advergames the results show that children could recognize the ad embedded in the game, but had problems in understanding the underlying commercial intention of it.
There is an increasing interest in nonverbal aspects of crisis communication. Some studies have e... more There is an increasing interest in nonverbal aspects of crisis communication. Some studies have examined the impact of visual cues (e.g., facial expressions), while one study has examined the impact of vocal cues (voice pitch). Findings from social psychology indicate that visual cues may be more dominant than vocal cues in affecting the perception of a speaker. Two studies therefore explored the relative importance of visual and vocal cues of spokespersons in crisis communication. Each study examined the effects of deceptive visual cues, while one study focused on their interaction with speech disturbances and another on their interaction with voice pitch. The results show that the impact of visual cues dominates the effects of vocal cues. In study one, visual cues affected consumers’ attitudes towards the organization and study two illustrates that visual cues also affect purchase intentions. In both studies, the impact of vocal cues depended on visual cues
The present study addresses the effects of refutational vs. nonrefutational two-sided messages on... more The present study addresses the effects of refutational vs. nonrefutational two-sided messages on source and message credibility. Additionally, the moderating role of issue ambivalence and argument tone (emotional vs. rational) is assessed. A 2 x 2 x 2 between-subjects factorial experimental design among 853 teenagers investigates the effect of eight anti binge drinking and anti marijuana messages on source and message credibility. The results show that refutation increases credibility compared to non-refutation. Additionally, a three-way interaction effect is found: credibility effects of refutation depends on the ambivalence of the issue and the argument tone.
Appetite, 2021
The industrial farming and slaughtering of animals may be considered one of the most pressing eth... more The industrial farming and slaughtering of animals may be considered one of the most pressing ethical problems of our time, yet consumers remain empathically disconnected from food animals and continue to eat meat. Therefore, animal advocacy groups have started using virtual reality (VR) outreach to promote consumers' concern for food animals and persuade them to eat less meat. In this study, we examined whether a short 360° documentary depicting the life cycle of factory farmed pigs (from their lives on the farm to their butcher in the slaughterhouse) experienced in a VR format versus in a regular video format increases participants' intentions to eat less meat via an increased feeling of presence and empathic concern. Using a single factor experimental design, we randomly allocated participants (n = 84 after data-cleaning) to answer a questionnaire following one of both conditions (VR versus video documentary, each n = 42). Results confirmed our hypothesized serial mediati...
Purpose The current study examines the effectiveness of brand integrations in music videos by tak... more Purpose The current study examines the effectiveness of brand integrations in music videos by taking into account the impact of both brand placement characteristics (i.e., brand prominence, valence of artist–brand relationship) and audience characteristics (i.e., artist connectedness). Methodology/approach A 2 (prominence: prominent vs. subtle) by 2 (valence: positive vs. negative) by 2 (connectedness: high vs. low) between-subjects experimental design is used. Each respondent first watched one music video via YouTube in which one branded product was placed either prominently or subtly. To manipulate the valence of the artist–brand relationship respondents were instructed to read a magazine article that revealed either a positive or negative attitude of the artist toward the placed brand. Two hundred twenty young adults participated in this study. Findings This study shows that prominent placements appear to be beneficial for the attitude toward the integrated brand when an individu...
Digital Advertising, 2017
Brand communities on social networking sites (SNSs) allow consumers to interact with brands in va... more Brand communities on social networking sites (SNSs) allow consumers to interact with brands in various ways differing in level of activeness and public visibility, ranging from rather passive and less publicly visible, to active and highly visible behaviors. For brands, brand-related behavior on SNSs is particularly desirable as consumers’ publicly visible interactions strengthen the brand’s online visibility, enhance brand equity, and may lead to better brand performance. This chapter discusses SNS brand communities, and provides an overview of previous research and an empirical study on how people interact with brands on SNSs, and what motivates them to do so.
Tijdschrift voor Communicatiewetenschap, 2015
Facebook as a corporate communication tool for companies? A content analysis of the communication... more Facebook as a corporate communication tool for companies? A content analysis of the communication strategies of reputable Belgian companies on the social network site Facebook as a corporate communication tool for companies? A content analysis of the communication strategies of reputable Belgian companies on the social network site This study used a quantitative content analysis to investigate how twelve reputable Belgian companies use Facebook as a corporate communication tool. Findings indicate that companies use Facebook more often to post public relations than marketing communication content. The former is also more often shared than the latter. However, the latter creates more engagement in terms of reactions of the company on comments of users. Furthermore, about one fourth of the company posts did not generate any written reactions from users and can be classified as one-way communication. Almost 40% of the posts generated reactions from the users. To conclude, in one third o...
Tijdschrift voor Communicatiewetenschap, 2015
The impact of emotional communication on perceived sincerity and reputation of organizations in c... more The impact of emotional communication on perceived sincerity and reputation of organizations in crisis The impact of emotional communication on perceived sincerity and reputation of organizations in crisis This paper examines the impact of emotional communication of an organizational spokesperson in times of crisis on consumers’ perceptions of the spokesperson (i.e. sincerity) and the organization (i.e. reputation) by two experimental studies. The results of study one using a 2 (crisis timing strategy: thunder vs. stealing thunder) × 2 (rational vs. sad message) between-subjects experimental design illustrates that emotional crisis communication leads to less reputational damage than rational crisis communication (N = 168), but only if the organization self-discloses the incrementing information. In study two, the discrete emotions were manipulated in a self-disclosing setting to be sadness or anger (N = 60). The results of study two show that a company is perceived to take more res...
Journal of Community Psychology, 2021
This study explored how children (9-13 years old) coped with the uncertain situation during the f... more This study explored how children (9-13 years old) coped with the uncertain situation during the first Covid-19 confinement period (Spring 2020) and whether media helped them handle the situation. Based on a survey among 667 West-European (Belgian) children, we concluded that children used various strategies to cope with the situation. Seeking social support via social media and searching for distraction was applied by most children. Creating a comforting atmosphere was used by many, although not evaluated as an effective strategy. Whereas older children searched for Covid-19-related information, younger children indicated to avoid news media to regulate their emotions. The Covid-19 anxiety of parents in the confinement period impacted upon the general level of concerns of their children. The results offer policy recommendations on how to support children in handling the tensive Covid-19 situation, especially during lockdown periods.
Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 2021
Next to physical health problems and economic damage, the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pan... more Next to physical health problems and economic damage, the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and associated lockdown measures taken by governments of many countries are expected to cause mental health problems. Especially for adolescents, who highly rely on social contacts with peers, the prolonged period of social isolation may have detrimental effects on their mental health. Based on the mood management theory, the current study examines if social media are beneficial for adolescents to cope with feelings of anxiety and loneliness during the quarantine. A survey study among 2,165 (Belgian) adolescents (13-19 years old) tested how feelings of anxiety and loneliness contributed to their happiness level, and whether different social media coping strategies (active, social relations, and humor) mediated these relations. Structural equation modeling revealed that feelings of loneliness had a higher negative impact on adolescents' happiness than feelings of anxiety. However, anxious participants indicated to use social media more often to actively seek for a manner to adapt to the current situation, and to a lesser extent as a way to keep in touch with friends and family. The indirect effect of anxiety on happiness through active coping was significantly positive. Participants who were feeling lonely were more inclined to use social media to cope with lacking social contact. However, this coping strategy was not significantly related to their happiness feelings. Humorous coping was positively related with feelings of happiness, but not influenced by loneliness or anxiety. To conclude, social media can be used as a constructive coping strategy for adolescents to deal with anxious feelings during the COVID-19 quarantine.
Journal of Communication in Healthcare, 2018
*The study was carried out in Belgium. It did not involve patients, nor (clinical) trials with pa... more *The study was carried out in Belgium. It did not involve patients, nor (clinical) trials with patients. Only participants were admitted with no prior history of breast cancer. The study was set up in cooperation with IBM Consulting as a first test of their new social software portal. Upon admission, participants were fully informed about the nature and purpose of the study, they were informed that they would participate fully anonymously and, consequently, the data would be analyzed in a fully anonymous way. They were also informed that they could withdraw from the study at any time (which none of them did). We checked with both the IBM Consulting Belgium and a hospital's ethical committees, and they both ensured us that in this case no ethical or IRB approval was required.
Preventive Veterinary Medicine, 2018
Journal of Business Research, 2019
Through three experimental studies, this paper sheds light on how expressing hope during response... more Through three experimental studies, this paper sheds light on how expressing hope during responses to organizational crises affects individuals' negative behavioural intentions (i.e., leaving or boycotting the company, spreading negative word-of-mouth). The first experiment shows that (1) a message framed with a higher level of hopefulness leads-due to reduced feelings of uncertainty and perceived inappropriateness-to fewer negative behavioural intentions than one framed with a lower level of hopefulness and that (2) the effects are stronger post-crisis than in the midst of a crisis. The results of the second experiment indicate that organizations should be cautious when expressing a higher level of hopefulness when a crisis is perceived to be highly severe as it may lead to more negative behavioural intentions because a higher level of hopeful framing is then perceived to be inappropriate. The third experiment supports the conclusion that a message framed with a higher level of hopefulness used by an organization with a favourable pre-crisis reputation leads to higher perceived crisis severity which, in turn, leads to higher perceived uncertainty, resulting in more negative behavioural intentions. For companies with an unfavourable pre-crisis reputation, no difference is found between the uses of a lower or higher level of hopefulness.
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Papers by Verolien Cauberghe