6 287 EXPLICIT MESSAGING PROMOTES GAME SELECTION that have shown that severity of depressive symptoms had no influence on help-seeking (Merikangas et al., 2011; Chin et al., 2015). Yet, considering that severe depressive symptoms have been found to decrease informal helpseeking (Sawyer et al., 2012; Chin et al., 2015), another explanation for our finding may lie in the undefined nature of mental health games. Mental health games may be interpreted as formal, informal or a separate category of help. This may have resulted in participants reacting to the therapeutic video game differently based on their interpretation. However, it is also possible that for mental health games, severity counteracts existing differences in help-seeking between those with more and less severe symptoms by decreasing barriers for help (Granic et al., 2014). Moreover, exploratory analyses showed that the attractiveness and fun young adults expected of the games based on the trailers was not predicted by symptom severity or symptom type with the exception of anxiety symptoms. Participants with elevated anxiety symptoms rated both the entertainment and the mental health game as less fun based on the trailers than participants without anxiety symptoms. This may indicate that individuals more prone to anxiety are apprehensive of video games. Alternatively, a third variable (e.g., intolerance of uncertainty), which influences both the perceived fun of video games and the level of anxiety symptoms, may explain why participants with elevated anxiety symptoms expected the games to be less fun irrespective of messaging. Thus, besides the influence of the trailer design the analyses provided no indication of why messaging differentially influenced participants. As two in five participants chose the entertainment game over the mental health game it is meaningful to explore why they may have made this decision and what may enhance the success of mental health messaging. First, participants may have experienced reactance or perceived stigma in response to the mental health trailer (e.g., one participant indicated that the mental health game suggested that there was ‘something wrong with me’) and therefore may have chosen the entertainment game instead. Previous research has shown that reactance may be limited both by warning people ahead of the persuasive intent of a health message (Richards & Banas, 2015) as well as by restoring their sense of autonomy after the message (Bessarabova et al., 2013). Yet, stigma is a broader societal problem, and evoking a sense of stigma cannot easily be avoided within an explicit mental health message. Alternatively, participants may have selected the entertainment game to improve their mood in line with the mood management model (Zillmann, 1988) or to avoid potential mood damaging effects of the mental health game in line
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