Information Targeting Increases the Weight of Stigma: Leveraging Relevance Backfires When People Feel Judged

Although relevance is viewed as a panacea for persuasion, there may be contexts in which attempts to leverage relevance backfire. Across two experiments, we investigated conditions under which signaling personal relevance, via targeting information to audiences based on identities, backfires. In particular, we assessed how activation of personal characteristics (e.g., identities, health goals, and both identities and goals), as well as context cues (e.g., time of year), impact persuasion. Because people with higher body mass indexes (BMIs) are frequently targets of weight stigma, particularly within health contexts, we expected that perceiving relevance based on weight identities would elicit identity threat and subsequently inhibit persuasion for people with higher, versus lower, BMIs. Across studies, participants were told they received information about obesity due to chance (control condition), or after providing their demographics (e.g., weight status; Studies 1–2), health goals (Study 2), or demographics and goals (Study 2). Findings revealed that, particularly for participants with higher BMIs, being targeted to receive information about obesity and obesity-related illness increased perceived relevance among recipients, which predicted increases in irritation and self-conscious emotions. Negative emotional responding produced heterogenous, but primarily deleterious, effects on self-efficacy and behavioral intentions to engage in healthy behavior because recipients felt unfairly judged (Study 2). Study 2 determined that targeting on goals and changes in context (e.g., stronger beliefs that change is possible at New Year's) decreased the link between perceived relevance and feeling judged. Collectively, this work shows that leveraging message relevance may inhibit persuasion for target audiences when they feel unfairly judged.