Depression is a critical public health concern, which can be mitigated by seekingprofessional help and/or social support. Several communication researchers have studied thisarea to improve help-seeking intentions through message design and evaluation. This dissertationaims at the use of nostalgic emotional appeals to influence behavioral intentions to seek help.Using the theory of planned behavior (TPB) as a guiding framework, the study examined theeffects of nostalgic appeal’s valence (positive vs. negative vs. coactive) on help-seekingintentions from three sources of help (professional counselors, friends, and family).The study recruited 482 participants from Amazon Mechanical Turk. Participants wererandomly assigned to one of the three video conditions: positive, negative, or coactive nostalgia.The results showed that participants’ attitude, perceived behavioral control, and descriptivenorms were significantly associated with their intentions to seek help from all sources of help.However, injunctive norms didn’t predict help-seeking intentions. Additionally, the parallelmultiple mediation analysis found a serial mediation effect of message conditions on positiveemotions that further influenced TPB variables, and in turn enhanced behavioral intentions toseek help. This study provides support for the TPB theoretical framework to influence helpseekingintentions for depression, via evoking more positive emotions, improving perceivedbehavioral control, and improving attitudes to seek help. Theoretical implications of this studyfor conceptualizing the effects of positive emotions and TPB variables on help seeking intentionsare discussed, and practical implications for future interventions are provided.
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