Date of Award

12-14-2015

Document Type

Open Access Dissertation

Department

School of Journalism and Mass Communications

First Advisor

Ran Wei

Abstract

HPV vaccination is an important public health issue, but past research has mostly been done on the HPV vaccination for females. This study explores promotions of the HPV vaccination for men, focusing on how social influence plays a role in influencing young male adults’ attitudes toward the HPV vaccine. An online survey was conducted on Amazon Mechanical Turk, and responses from 656 males aged 18-26 in the United States were analyzed. Results indicated that exposure to messages were associated with perceived effects of the messages on others, which related to the perceived descriptive norm of vaccine uptake among other males. However, the perceived injunctive norm was more powerful in predicting support for the HPV vaccination for males than the perceived descriptive norm. Perceived descriptive norm were found to be associated with how men attributed the responsibilities of HPV infections and vaccinations to the self or to women, which in turn related to support for the vaccine. Findings point to suggestions for future promotions of the HPV vaccination for males.

Rights

© 2015, Wan Chi Leung

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