Message Framing Effects on Youth's Smoking Behavior

描述(由申请者提供)：青少年和年轻人戒烟计划应用了态度-行为关系的阶段性和社会心理学模型。随着青少年和年轻人尝试并继续吸烟，他们认为吸烟的积极结果比消极结果更突出。随着他们成为经常吸烟的人，他们对吸烟的积极态度和结果预期变得更加稳固。相反，当他们考虑戒烟时，消极的态度和消极的结果预期变得更加突出。这些发现表明，吸烟的积极和消极方面的交流可能在影响吸烟轨迹方面影响最大的时候可能是最佳时刻。不幸的是，现有的文献几乎没有提供关于如何在处于吸烟不同阶段的青少年和年轻人中最好地、有说服力地交流不吸烟的利弊，以及其假定有效性的可能机制的见解。来自几种健康行为的证据以及我们的试点数据表明，人们对被框定为收益或损失的信息的说服方式不同。以收益为框架的信息强调参与或不参与行动方案的优点；以损失为框架的信息强调参与或不参与行动方案的缺点。更大规模的试验测试获得或损失框架信息的说服力，以影响年龄较大的青少年和年轻成年吸烟者(如社区大学生)戒烟和戒烟的意图，缺乏其假定有效性的机制。这些问题构成了这项为期三年的研究的基础。本研究采用两组(获得和损失框视频)后(1个月和6个月)纵向实验设计，使用了大约390名18-24岁的社区大学生，研究了获得和损失框架信息如何与吸烟阶段的变化相互作用，以影响：1)戒烟动机和意图，以及严重的戒烟尝试，以及2)作为阶段函数的获得和损失框架信息的假定有效性影响上述结果的机制。这项研究是第一次尝试在很少研究的社区大学生吸烟者群体中，评估人们对有说服力的戒烟信息的反应，这些信息涉及戒烟动机/戒烟意图，以及作为阶段函数的假定有效性的中介因素。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Adolescent and young adult smoking cessation programs have applied stage-based and social psychological models of attitude-behavior relations. As teens and young adults experiment with and continue to smoke, they perceive the positive smoking outcomes as more salient than the negative outcomes. As they become regular smokers, their positive attitudes and outcome expectancies towards smoking become more solidified. Conversely, as they contemplate quitting, negative attitudes and negative outcome expectancies become more salient. These findings suggest that there may be optimal moments when the communication of positive and negative aspects of smoking may be most influential at affecting the smoking trajectory. Unfortunately, the extant literature provides very little insights about how to best communicate persuasively the pros of not smoking and cons of smoking among older teens and young adults at various stages of smoking, and possible mechanisms for their presumed effectiveness. Evidence across several health behaviors, and from our pilot data, suggest that people are persuaded differently by messages framed as gains or losses. Gain-framed messages highlight the advantages of either engaging or not engaging in a course of action; loss-frame messages highlight the disadvantages of either engaging or not engaging in a course of action. Larger trials testing the persuasiveness of gain- or loss-framed messages to affect older teens and young adult smokers' (e.g., community college students) intentions to quit and quit attempts, and the mechanisms for their presumed effectiveness are lacking. These issues form the bases of this three-year study. Employing a two-group (gain vs. loss-frame video) pre-post (one and six month) longitudinal experimental design using approximately 390 community college students between the ages of 18-24, the study examines how gain- and loss-framed messages interact with smoking stages of change, as defined by the Transtheoretical Model, to affect: 1) the motivation and intention to quit, and serious quit attempts, and 2) mechanisms for the presumed effectiveness of gain- versus loss-framed messages to affect the aforementioned outcomes as a function of stage. This study is the first to attempt to assess reactions toward persuasively framed cessation messages on the motivation/intentions to quit and quit attempts and mediators for their presumed effectiveness as a function of stage in rarely studied populations of community college student smokers.