Psychological manipulation mechanisms of false fitness and supplement information and public health risks: from information manipulation to behavioral decision-making.

Heuristic trust and perceived credibility were generally high among participants exposed to false fitness and supplement advertisements.

• Heuristic trust mean was 4.50 (SD = 0.60)
• Perceived credibility mean was 6.54 (SD = 0.44)
• Study used a randomized online experiment with N = 630 participants
• Participants viewed simulated social-media advertisements manipulating authority endorsement, scarcity framing, and conformity cues in a 2×2×2 design along with a truthful control condition

Higher heuristic trust and perceived credibility were closely linked to lower risk perception and stronger purchase intention.

• Risk perception mean was low at 1.79 (SD = 0.39)
• Purchase intention mean was 5.02 (SD = 0.68)
• Risk perception exerted a substantial negative association with purchase intention
• The indirect pathway from heuristic trust to intention through risk perception was statistically reliable (indirect effect = 0.279, 95% CI [0.230, 0.329])

Persuasive impact of false fitness and supplement claims was driven largely by interface cues and social validation signals rather than by the credibility of evidentiary content.

• Manipulated cues included authority endorsement, scarcity framing, and conformity cues
• Structural modeling confirmed these interface-level features shaped behavioral intention
• Social validation signals played a larger role than evidence-based credibility in determining persuasive impact
• This pattern held across all experimental conditions

Health literacy showed a consistent pattern in which higher literacy was associated with a stronger negative slope of risk perception on intention, but this interaction was not statistically significant.

• Higher health literacy was associated with a stronger negative relationship between risk perception and purchase intention
• The interaction term was not statistically significant in the moderation model
• The pattern was described as 'consistent' despite not reaching statistical significance
• Health literacy was examined as a moderator in the structural model

Repeated exposure to unregulated persuasive cue structures in online health-related advertising may gradually normalize low perceived risk and heighten purchase intention.

• Authors argue that if persuasive cue structures remain unregulated, normalization of low perceived risk may occur over time
• This normalization was described as posing 'longer-term challenges for consumer protection and public-health governance'
• The study design used simulated social-media advertisements to model real-world exposure conditions
• The findings point to implications for regulating interface-level features in health advertising