Week 2 - 663

This week in class we talked about how people think, more specifically the idea of dual processing. We read an article www.as.wvu.edu/~sbb/comm221/chapters/dual.htm that discusses how generally people think in 1 of 2 ways, either heuristically or systematically. Heuristically meaning, thinking just enough about the situation to be aware, but not thinking carefully enough to catch flaws, errors and inconsistencies. Systematically being where someone mostly thinks carefully and effortfully, “the thought process is active, creative and alert.” The article mentions that most people generally think heuristically.

If this is true, while we’re trying to promote health campaigns how do we grab people’s attention?

If you were to ask someone to rank in order the top 5 things they care about, most of the time health would be in the top 5 if not 3. However, why is it that people don’t respond to health campaigns or continue to put themself at risk? Many ads, commercials, etc. use sex, looks and money to promote their products because as they say, “sex sells”. As public health advocates, what do we have? Trans fats, mammograms and smoking! Is it no wonder the people we are trying to reach don’t pay attention? So… should we be using sex, looks and money to promote health? Whether or not we do, it is imperative to figure out how to grab our population’s attention and start to care about these health risks!