Get Rid of Mr. Virus: The Effect of Injurant Anthropomorphism on the Intention to Engage in Protective Behavior

Injurant anthropomorphism is defined as the anthropomorphism of disease-causing agents with humanlike characteristics, emotions, intentions, or behavior. More and more health product brands and health care organizations are depicting disease causing injurants (e.g., enterovirus or PM2.5 pollutants) with human characteristics in their advertising. However, the effect of injurant anthropomorphism on consumer perceptions and decision making remains unclear. This paper investigates how consumers feel and react to injurant anthropomorphism in the context of heath product promotion. The results of four lab and field experiments show that participants will develop a higher intention to engage in protective behavior (e.g., use a PM 2.5 anti-pollution mask) when the injurant is anthropomorphized than when it is not. However, the effect disappears if the injurant triggers a high behavioral immune response (BIR), or is imbued with a crying humanlike face. In addition, the perceived threat of disease is found to mediate this effect. Briefly, the present study contributes to the health communication literature and real-world practices by systematically examining the impact of injurant anthropomorphism on the health protective response, the process through which it exerts influence, or the boundary conditions for the effect.