TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2022//
TI  - Fear appeals in anti-knife carrying campaigns: successful or counter-productive?
JO  - Journal of interpersonal violence
A1  - Hobson, Zoe
A1  - Yesberg, Julia A.
A1  - Bradford, Ben
SP  - ePub
EP  - ePub
VL  - ePub
IS  - ePub
N2  - In the UK, knife crime continues to be a persistent and worrying concern. Media campaigns are often used by police and anti-knife crime organisations in an attempt to discourage young people from picking up a weapon. Many focus on the potentially devastating consequences associated with carrying a weapon, with the aim of provoking fear and thus a deterrent effect. In this paper, we present the findings from two experimental studies exploring the effects of exposure to fear-based knife crime media campaigns on young people's intentions to engage in knife-carrying behaviour. Utilising a terror management theory perspective, in both studies we found that exposure to knife-related campaign imagery increased mortality salience, but there was no effect of campaign condition on willingness to carry a knife or on perceived benefits of knife-carrying. Although knife-related self-esteem/cultural worldviews predicted attitudes towards knife-carrying, such views did not moderate the effect of exposure to knife-related campaign imagery, and there was no effect of priming participants' to consider the value of behaving responsibly. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.<p />  <p>Language: en</p>
LA  - en
SN  - 0886-2605
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/08862605211064237
ID  - ref1
ER  -