Surprisingly, participants were more comfortable describing their responses in
terms of shock or horror, as if these were more socially acceptable responses;
potentially because these were seen to be reflexes rather than choices about an
emotional response. The participants reported that for horror and shock to be
influential it had to be realistic. That is, depictions of situations involving horror or
shock were rejected if the scenario was not seen to be a realistic representation. Thus,
the Grim Reaper campaigns, while successful in terms of generating recall and
arousal, were not influential in terms of behaviour – ‘that person was not ‘me’ and
therefore I could safely ignore the message.’ The more confronting messages seemed
to need a greater appeal to realism so that the participants were convinced of the idea
that ‘it could happen to me’. Realism in representation was crucial for messages to be
taken seriously. As one participant said: ‘People do respond [to fear appeals] as long
as the message is pretty clear’ (Male, Unemployed, 25-34 years). In order for the
messages of fear campaigns to be clear, real situations and images had to be depicted