{"title":"Effect of Perceived Descriptive Norm on Physical Distancing: A Perspective from Impression Management Motives.","authors":"Ruoran Fu, Xinyuan Fu, Shuxian Li, Keke Zhu, Mei Zhang, Ruoyu Zhai","doi":"10.1080/10410236.2026.2736556","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10410236.2026.2736556","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>While descriptive norms greatly shape behavior, their role in activating impression management motives remains understudied. The present study examined whether perceived descriptive norm promotes physical distancing through impression management motives, as well as the moderating effect of trait reactance. Three online studies were conducted with full-time employees in China: Studies 1 and 2 were correlational (<i>n</i> = 484 each), examining the mediating effects of social and moral impression management motives and the moderating effect of trait reactance respectively. Study 3 (<i>n</i> = 300) experimentally manipulated perceived descriptive norm (descriptive norm vs. control condition) and tested the full model using both self-reported and virtual image-based physical distancing intentions. Results showed that perceived descriptive norm promoted physical distancing by activating social impression management motive. Moreover, this effect was stronger for individuals higher in trait reactance. These findings highlight how leveraging descriptive norms can strategically promote physical distancing.</p>","PeriodicalId":12889,"journal":{"name":"Health Communication","volume":" ","pages":"1-13"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2026-09-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149074317","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Camille J Saucier, Huaye Li, Christopher Calabrese, Anna Baker, Jinkyung Katie Park
{"title":"Predicting Symptom Change in Mental Health Chatbot Interventions: A Meta-Analysis.","authors":"Camille J Saucier, Huaye Li, Christopher Calabrese, Anna Baker, Jinkyung Katie Park","doi":"10.1080/10410236.2026.2734165","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10410236.2026.2734165","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Mental health-focused chatbots have emerged as scalable interventions that deliver therapeutic content through conversational interfaces. This meta-analysis of 35 studies (<i>N</i> = 1,780) indicates that chatbots can reduce depression (g = -.53, 95% CI [-.67,-.40]) and anxiety (<i>g</i> = -.36, 95% CI [-.46,-.27]) symptoms over time. However, wide prediction intervals reveal substantial heterogeneity, suggesting that while some interventions are associated with symptom reduction, others may increase them. Moderator analyses revealed that therapeutic alliance significantly predicted reductions in both depression and anxiety symptoms. Task and goal alliance significantly predicted a reduction in depression symptoms, while bond alliance did not. Similarly, treatment acceptability significantly moderated depression symptom change, noting the importance of perceived intervention appropriateness. Mental health chatbots designed using cognitive behavioral therapy and interventions delivered over longer durations were associated with larger symptom reductions, particularly for anxiety. In addition, populations with both clinical and self-reported diagnoses were associated with larger reductions in depression symptoms compared to interventions recruiting general populations. Findings also reveal considerable gaps in mental health chatbot development and evaluation, as few studies have examined key communication-related moderators, such as therapeutic alliance and acceptability, despite their demonstrated importance in the mental health communication and therapeutic literature.</p>","PeriodicalId":12889,"journal":{"name":"Health Communication","volume":" ","pages":"1-15"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2026-09-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149038212","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Parental Attachment Anxiety and Adolescents' Authentic Self-Disclosure to Generative AI: The Roles of Rumination, Depression, and Gender.","authors":"Yongjie Yue, Pengcheng Wang, Biao Li, Yan Sun, Jilong Wang, Lipeng Yin","doi":"10.1080/10410236.2026.2734161","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10410236.2026.2734161","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) is increasingly used by adolescents across various domains. While existing research has explored its impact on education and mental health, little attention has been given to adolescents' authentic self-disclosure to GenAI. Drawing on the cognitive appraisal theory of stress and the computers are social actors paradigm, this study examines how parent - adolescent attachment anxiety influences adolescents' authentic self-disclosure to GenAI, with rumination and depression as mediators and gender as a moderator. A total of 685 Chinese adolescents (324 girls, <i>M</i><sub><i>age</i></sub> = 13.17) participated in an offline survey. Results showed that attachment anxiety with both father and mother were positively associated with rumination, which, in turn, was positively linked to depression. Both rumination and depression were positively associated with authentic self-disclosure to GenAI. Rumination and depression sequentially mediated this relationship. A multi-group analysis revealed that the effect of rumination on depression was significantly greater among girls than among boys.</p>","PeriodicalId":12889,"journal":{"name":"Health Communication","volume":" ","pages":"1-13"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2026-09-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149024679","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Charlotte Schrimpff, Tanja Fisse, Elena Link, Christoph Klimmt, Eva Baumann
{"title":"From the Providers' Perspective: Challenges and Facilitators of Patient-Centered Communication and Its Role for Decision-Making in the Context of Implant Treatment in Germany.","authors":"Charlotte Schrimpff, Tanja Fisse, Elena Link, Christoph Klimmt, Eva Baumann","doi":"10.1080/10410236.2026.2734168","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10410236.2026.2734168","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Patient-centered communication (PCC) is considered an ideal for effective, trusting treatment-relationships. It enables decision-making, patient empowerment, and better treatment outcomes. Although PCC emerges from the interactions between patients and healthcare providers, little is known about the healthcare providers' perspective on PCC. To close this gap and to explore their perception of PCC and decision-making, we conducted qualitative semi-structured interviews with <i>N</i> = 13 German healthcare providers (HCPs) working in three different fields of implant treatment, namely cochlear, dental, and orthopedic implants as examples for elective treatment contexts with varying degrees of invasiveness and rehabilitation requirements. Our results indicate that aspects of PCC were often described to occur in the interactions. We found that healthcare providers aimed for information exchange, outcome expectation management, and supporting patients' emotional coping during encounters. However, limiting factors such as a lack of time or low patient literacy were also discussed. We also found PCC to be crucial for decision-making as HCPs intend to enable patients to make an informed decision while also reflecting on their power to steer the discussion. Our findings underscore the importance to raise further awareness for the potentials of PCC among healthcare providers.</p>","PeriodicalId":12889,"journal":{"name":"Health Communication","volume":" ","pages":"1-13"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2026-09-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149024608","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Changing Adolescents' Cigarette and E-Cigarette Cognitions via a Media Literacy-Based Active Involvement Intervention: A Randomized Cluster Trial.","authors":"Sofie Vranken, Femke Geusens, Kathryn Greene, Kathleen Beullens","doi":"10.1080/10410236.2026.2736560","DOIUrl":"10.1080/10410236.2026.2736560","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Media are important socialization actors in adolescents' (e-)cigarette usage. This study evaluated the immediate and delayed effects of a media literacy intervention on adolescents' (e-)cigarette cognitions. Grounded in the theory of active involvement, we explored (a) whether having adolescents design their own counter campaign can reduce (e-)cigarette cognitions, (b) how long the effects persist, and (c) whether effects differ for cigarette and e-cigarette cognitions. Using a randomized cluster trial design with an intervention and control condition, adolescents (aged 13-15) completed three questionnaires (baseline measure, <i>n</i> = 1,189; immediate follow-up, <i>n</i> = 1,096; and 6-month delayed follow-up, <i>n</i> = 906). For cigarettes, the intervention produced delayed effects on descriptive norms and willingness. For e-cigarettes, the intervention improved social norms, and outcome expectations immediately after the intervention, and produced delayed effects on norms, attitudes, and willingness six months after the intervention. Exploratory analyses revealed delayed gender effects for e-cigarette cognitions. Hence, active involvement interventions appear to be effective, albeit depending on the type of product, the timeframe, and adolescents' demographics.</p>","PeriodicalId":12889,"journal":{"name":"Health Communication","volume":" ","pages":"1-12"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2026-09-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149024619","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Message Framing and Causal Attributions Shape Public Reactions to Parkinson's Disease: Evidence from China and the United States.","authors":"Elvin Yao, Harry Yang","doi":"10.1080/10410236.2026.2726477","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10410236.2026.2726477","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Parkinson's disease (PD) is a visible and stigmatized condition that is often misunderstood by the public. Drawing on attribution theory and cross-cultural health communication, we investigated how causal explanations for PD (biological vs. environmental risk factors) and message framing (individual-focused vs. group-focused) shape emotional and behavioral responses across two cultural contexts. In Study 1 (<i>N</i> = 260), Chinese participants read vignettes describing either an individual with PD or a broader population affected by PD and reported their sympathy, anger, willingness to help, and donation intentions. In Study 2 (<i>N</i> = 168), a parallel experiment was conducted with U.S. participants. Across both studies, biological explanations elicited greater sympathy and generally stronger supportive responses than environmental-risk explanations. Consistent with our predictions, individual-focused messages generally produced stronger responses among U.S. participants, whereas group-focused messages tended to produce stronger responses among Chinese participants. These findings highlight the importance of attribution-sensitive and culturally informed communication strategies for reducing stigma and promoting support for people living with PD.</p>","PeriodicalId":12889,"journal":{"name":"Health Communication","volume":" ","pages":"1-10"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2026-09-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149001757","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Braidyn Lazenby, Ashley Guidry, Sarah Price, Md Sazzad Mahmud Shuvo, Tursynay Alikhanova, Chloe Morrison, Nicole Davis, Madison Lenard
{"title":"\"They Call Us Cheaters\": Exploring Stigma Management Communication Strategies During GLP-1 Medication Use.","authors":"Braidyn Lazenby, Ashley Guidry, Sarah Price, Md Sazzad Mahmud Shuvo, Tursynay Alikhanova, Chloe Morrison, Nicole Davis, Madison Lenard","doi":"10.1080/10410236.2026.2734167","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10410236.2026.2734167","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>As GLP-1 receptor agonist medications become more popular, conversations surrounding the medication's use are becoming increasingly more complicated. Emerging research suggests that individuals taking these medications often feel stigmatized. However, understanding how individuals manage stigma through communication is less explored. Using stigma management communication theory, the current study seeks to better understand how individuals communicatively manage stigma surrounding GLP-1 medication use. A reflexive thematic analysis of interviews with GLP-1 users (<i>n =</i> 34) suggests that individuals evaluate their interpretations of both their own self-stigma and the public's understanding of GLP-1 and engage in various different stigma management communication strategies in response. These strategies, while effective for stigma management, may inadvertently contribute to ongoing stigmatizing discourse surrounding GLP-1 use.</p>","PeriodicalId":12889,"journal":{"name":"Health Communication","volume":" ","pages":"1-11"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2026-09-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149001726","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Eliminating Equity: A Culture-Centered Reading of the Attack on Health Equity in Project 2025's Mandate for Leadership.","authors":"Mohan J Dutta","doi":"10.1080/10410236.2026.2734166","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10410236.2026.2734166","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Project 2025's <i>Mandate for Leadership</i> proposes a sweeping reorganization of the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). This article reads the <i>Mandate</i>'s HHS chapter through the culture-centered approach (CCA), joining its account of structure, culture, agency, voice, and communicative inequality to a critical discourse analysis of the chapter's mission statement, its five governing goals, and its data provisions. The chapter does more than oppose equity policies. It reorganizes the conceptual and infrastructural conditions under which health inequity can be named, measured, and redressed. To describe that work the article develops communicative eliminationism: the administrative withdrawal of the categories that make the structural determinants of health visible to evidence, funding, and care. Five operations carry the withdrawal, recoding, un-naming, conditioning, displacing, and enumerating, and they reach three registers of increasing depth, from the recoding of a category through its administrative un-naming to the withdrawal of the infrastructure that sustains it. The chapter recodes equity as ideology, un-names disfavored forms of care, redistributes the power of refusal, installs a sacralized family form as a metric of health, and turns health surveillance from recognition toward monitoring. Read alongside the normative rationales its own authors offer, the chapter suspends each rationale exactly where it would protect the populations it names, and that asymmetry is the strongest evidence for the eliminationist reading. On culture-centered premises, defending health equity means protecting the infrastructures of recognition and organizing for structural transformation, not culturally sensitive communication inside categories that are being erased.</p>","PeriodicalId":12889,"journal":{"name":"Health Communication","volume":" ","pages":"1-13"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2026-09-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148976646","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Lynsey K Romo, Jenna S Abetz, Xiayi Du, Teaghan McManus
{"title":"Managing Abstinence in a Culture of Use: A Normative Rhetorical Analysis of Substance-Free College Students.","authors":"Lynsey K Romo, Jenna S Abetz, Xiayi Du, Teaghan McManus","doi":"10.1080/10410236.2026.2734163","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10410236.2026.2734163","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Substance use remains deeply embedded in the normative fabric of U.S. college life, positioning abstinence as socially deviant. Although prior research has examined non-drinking and recovery experiences, it is unknown how students who abstain from all substances, including alcohol, cannabis, and nicotine, navigate everyday college life. Guided by Normative Rhetorical Theory (NRT), this qualitative study explores the communicative dilemmas and strategies of 30 substance-free students. Findings reveal that abstinence is not a passive health choice but an ongoing relational accomplishment. Participants described three recurring dilemmas: balancing inclusion with nonparticipation, avoiding judgment while sometimes judging others, and negotiating authenticity within substance-centered norms. In response, students relied on interrelated communication strategies (e.g., selective disclosure, audience tailoring, minimal explanations), interpretive lenses (e.g., reframing judgment as incompatibility, redefining social norms), and environmental resources (e.g., curating networks, avoiding high-risk spaces, using material cues) to maintain abstinence while preserving relationships. Extending NRT beyond acute health contexts, this study conceptualizes abstinence as a dynamic practice embedded in routine social interactions and as sustained through continual meaning-making and management.</p>","PeriodicalId":12889,"journal":{"name":"Health Communication","volume":" ","pages":"1-11"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2026-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148967889","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Optimizing Culturally Grounded Mental Illness Recovery Narratives for Anti-Stigma Messaging on Social Media: A Three-Wave Longitudinal Study.","authors":"Najma Akhther","doi":"10.1080/10410236.2026.2734162","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10410236.2026.2734162","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Understanding how the effectiveness of mental health anti-stigma campaigns change over time is essential for designing sustainable and equitable interventions. Yet little is known about how these campaigns produce long-term impacts within interactive social media environments. This study conducted a three-wave longitudinal experiment to examine the effectiveness of social media-based mental illness recovery messages in reducing stigma and promoting professional help-seeking among African American, Hispanic, and Asian American adults (<i>N</i> = 577). Grounded in narrative persuasion, stigma, and social media affordance theories, the study tested the effects of message form (narrative vs. non-narrative), narrative point of view (first-person vs. third-person), and evaluability affordances (present vs. absent: likes, comments, shares) over a three-week period. While narrative messages alone did not significantly reduce stigma or increase behavioral intentions, evaluability affordances shaped stigma trajectories, with visible engagement cues linked to increased self-stigma, an unintended effect reflected in rising self-doubt stigma over time. Findings suggest that narrative persuasion on social media is dynamic and context-dependent, emphasizing the need for culturally sensitive and sustained anti-stigma interventions.</p>","PeriodicalId":12889,"journal":{"name":"Health Communication","volume":" ","pages":"1-16"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2026-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148967880","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}