Responses to Mental Health Care Posts by Social Media Influencers: The Moderating Effects of Previous Experience and Follower Involvement

ABSTRACT

Mental health information on social media is more often communicated by regular users as opposed to healthcare professionals, and a subset of these regular users, social media influencers, are employed as marketing sources for therapy companies. According to social cognitive theory, an influencer’s story about their positive experiences with therapy should encourage followers to also seek therapy, and stronger involvement with the influencer should enhance these effects. Although research has found that previous experience with modeled behaviors may mute vicarious learning effects, with a nuanced and stigmatized context like mental health treatment, it is important to parse out both the quantity and valence of previous experience in understanding how it shapes audience responses to mental health content on social media. The current study tests a moderated mediation model to help explain the impact of previous viewer experience with therapy (quantity and valence) and involvement with the influencer (similarity and parasocial relationship) on social cognitive theory-related outcomes. Results indicate no interaction effects of the moderators; however, there were direct positive effects of previous viewer experience and SMI outcome on outcome expectations, which in turn positively predicted behavioral intentions to seek therapy. Interestingly, self-efficacy had a negative effect on behavioral intentions.

Acknowledgments

Thank you Dr. Jessica Gall Myrick for your assistance in the shaping of this project.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary data

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/15205436.2023.2269542.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Olivia Simone Reed

Olivia Simone Reed (PhD, Pennsylvania State University) is an assistant professor in the Department of Professional Communication at Minot State University. Dr. Reed studies health media effects in the context of social media influencers and is a content creator herself on YouTube and Instagram.