Persuasiveness of HIV/AIDS public service announcements as a function of argument quality, personal relevance, and evidence form

We conducted an experiment with a mixed factorial design to examine how HIV/AIDS public service announcements (PSAs) that varied in quality of argument, level of personal relevance, and form of evidence, affected attitude and behavioral intention toward condom use with main and nonmain partners. Participants were 85 heterosexually active young adults at a northeastern university in the United States. Results showed that argument quality influenced attitude toward condom use regardless of partner type, and level of personal relevance influenced attitude toward condom use with main partners but not with nonmain partners. There was no difference in attitude or behavioral intention according to whether the evidence was narrative or statistical. The attitudinal effect of personal relevance was more prominent in narrative than in statistical PSAs.