Communication · Executive Insight Brief · 525
Worried, informed, and still exposed
The Parallel Response Model distinguishes managing an objective danger from managing the distress that a warning produces
Premise
An alarming warning can generate intense concern without generating protection. People may avoid the message, seek reassurance, or dismiss the source while the hazard remains unchanged. Howard Leventhal’s Parallel Response Model separates efforts to control the danger from efforts to control the fear that danger information arouses.
The communication design problem is practical: a message can succeed at generating urgency and fail at showing what action is feasible. Leaders must examine protective behavior independently of emotional reaction. Increasing fear is not a substitute for making a response understandable, accessible, and executable.
What the model is: Parallel Response Model in Knowledge →
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- Why this matters
- Risks and limits
- Executive takeaway
- Key questions
- Selected sources
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- FamilyModel
- CategoryTheories & Explanatory Models
- DomainRisk, Crisis & Safety
What these mean
Editorial orientation · Family
Model
In this series, Model names the editorial family primarily used to understand and explain communication: theories, frameworks, effects, traditions, principles and other conceptual resources. It is an umbrella for a route into the field, not a claim that every included object is a predictive model.
Editorial orientation · Category
Theories & Explanatory Models
Explains how or why a communication process works by relating mechanisms, conditions or variables. Its value is an account that can guide inquiry into what produces an outcome, rather than a name for the outcome alone.