Throughout high school there are many stressors, what college will I go to, will I make the sports team, will he ask me out, these are some of the normal stressors of being a teenage but what if your main stressor was pregnancy. Theres an estimated 750,000 pregnancies a year that equals out to every three out of ten American girls will get pregnant before age 20. (11 Facts about teen pregnancy)
Every parent and sexual education teachers try to use the fear appeal when it comes to educating teens about sexual activity. “Fear appeals are persuasive messages that attempt to arouse fear by emphasizing the potential danger and harm that will befall if they do not adopt the messages recommendations.” (Tannenbaum 2015) This is used in the form of stating abstinence is the only way to stop the procreation of a child. Another tactic that is used is the fear that if an individual has sexual intercourse once they will either die, contract a disease, or get someone pregnant from the thought of sex. Fear appeal is not always the worst way to approach a topic, however if it is the only method used the individual can miss out on important facts that are necessary to make an informed decision about the topic.
Many states throughout the country use the abstinence only education module. This fear tactic is used primarily in Mississippi, Texas, Arizona, Arkansas, Louisiana. Many other states use this method of teach for a portion of the curriculum but emphasize the importance of other methods as well. Out of these five states they have the highest number of live births among teenagers. (Abstinence Only 2022)
Thankfully over the years this fear appeals has been used less and less among parents and the sexual education curriculum. Society has a whole has learned that fear appeal is not always the best way of teaching. Studies have shown that teens have had few in 2010 than any other years since the mid-1994. (11 Facts about teen pregnancy) This is an incredible accomplishment for our society.
References
Abstinence-only education states 2022. (n.d.). Retrieved December 5, 2022, from https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/abstinence-only-education-states
Dillard JP, Plotnick CA, Godbold LC, Freimuth VS, Edgar T. The multiple affective outcomes of AIDS PSAs: Fear appeals do more than scare people. Communication Research. 1996;23:44–72. doi: 10.1177/009365096023001002.
Tannenbaum, M. B., Hepler, J., Zimmerman, R. S., Saul, L., Jacobs, S., Wilson, K., & Albarracín, D. (2015, November). Appealing to fear: A meta-analysis of Fear Appeal Effectiveness and theories. Psychological bulletin. Retrieved December 5, 2022, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5789790/#:~:text=Fear%20appeals%20are%20persuasive%20messages,Maddux%20%26%20Rogers%2C%201983).