Reducing psychological reactance to bystander intervention messages: comparing preemptive and postscript mitigation strategies

ABSTRACT This study compared the effectiveness of two approaches for diminishing psychological reactance in the context of bystander intervention: preemptive and postscript mitigation. Undergraduates (N = 598) completed an online survey experiment. Participants viewed a message promoting bystander intervention and were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: preemptive script, restoration postscript, or a message-only control (no pre/postscript). Consistent with past work, no differences were observed in the effectiveness of the preemptive and postscript mitigation techniques vis-à-vis reactance and behavioral intention. The use of a reactance mitigation strategy (preemptive or postscript) resulted in greater behavioral intention relative to a control message. However, post hoc analyses revealed this effect occurred among women, but not men. Counter to expectations, the use of preemptive and postscript strategies did not reduce reactance relative to a control message.