Inner conflict:

In the context of Conversion Practices, audiences might feel conflicted between their intention to care and their fear to hurt. Focusing attention on the harm that Conversion Practices might create increases their discomfort and drives the nail in.

Blaming and shaming:

Blaming and shaming often shocks audiences, which in some cases could provoke rejection rather than empathy. This is where careful message testing comes into play.

Social norms:

Conversion Practices is one of the issues where there is a lot of open criticism from authoritative sources, like the medical profession. Flagging this criticism will increase the social conformity effect and drive the status quo bias.

(For more on biases, a full course is available for you. We will provide the link at the end of this course, so stay with us for now).

Realigning values:

Regarding Conversion Practices, the value of care is obviously a favourite, as most of the intentions behind Conversion Practices are, at least formally, rooted in benevolence, which is probably why this particular form of abuse is rife in religious circles. 

Campaigns against Conversion Practices often seek to trigger the value of care in their audiences and redirect this value towards acceptance of differences. The value of diversity is also often targeted by campaigners. On the other hand, appealing to the value of sanctity (e.g. messages rooted in the affirmation of religious beliefs might unintentionally work in favour of Conversion Practices, so the deep impact of these messages on moveable religious audiences has to be carefully tested.