2022 Volume 30 Issue 2 Pages 163-171
This special report presents the issues that I have encountered in the two years since COVID-19 began, along with a theoretical framework and related studies. The center of my awareness of the issues is the limitations of the traditional communication that overemphasizes the provision of knowledge to lay people. To break the “curse of knowledge” of health professionals and avoid “message fatigue” that may induce psychological reactance in the target audiences, we need to break away from “communication to teach” and shift to “communication to make feel.” I propose communication strategies such as appealing to affective determinants of health behavior and fundamental human motives. I hope that this report will contribute to apply the lessons learned from COVID-19 to future research and practice of communication for behavior change.
