From the folks at UPenn’s Behavior Change for Good:
Large Field Experiments Show Q&A-Style Messaging Can Boost Engagement and Change Behavior
Is it better to deliver health facts directly, or to begin with a question that sparks curiosity? BCFG’s research led by BCFG Team Scientist Erika Kirgios (a Wharton PhD graduate and Professor at the University of Chicago) offers new insight into this question. Our paper in Management Science investigated the effectiveness of Q&A-style messaging across two large field experiments in Ghana and Michigan (41,395 total participants) and an online ad campaign reaching more than 900,000 users.
What did these experiments test?
Across three large experiments, this research tested whether sharing health information in the form of a question, followed by an answer, would increase engagement and behavior change more than sharing the same information via direct statements.
In field experiments in Ghana and Michigan, the research team evaluated whether Q&A-style messaging could boost information seeking (for example, learning more about mask wearing), self-reported adherence to recommended health behaviors, and information sharing with others.
In a follow-up Facebook ad experiment, the research team also tested whether public health ads using the question-then-answer format would produce more cost-effective engagement (as measured by clicks to a CDC website) than ads directly stating the same facts.
What were the key takeaways from the research?
- Q&A-style messaging can be a light-touch, low-cost way to increase health engagement, likely because beginning with a question helps spark curiosity. As compared to providing health facts directly, Q&A-style messages boosted topic-specific information seeking in Ghana and in Michigan. Q&A-style messages did not, however, increase engagement with general COVID-19 information.
- Texts that asked a question first led to a 1.3-percentage-point (4%) increase in self-reported adherence to recommended public health behaviors in Michigan (compared to direct statements).
- Q&A-style ads on Facebook were more cost-effective, generating 9–11% more unique clicks per dollar than direct statement ads.
Who contributed to this project?
Co-authors on this project included BCFG Co-Directors Katy Milkman and Angela Duckworth (Penn), BCFG Team Scientists Dean Karlan (Northwestern) and Susan Athey (Stanford), as well as Molly Offer-Westort (University of Chicago) and Mike Luca (Johns Hopkins).
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