Message Framing Effects on Youth's Smoking Behavior

描述（由申请人提供）：青少年和年轻人戒烟项目应用了基于阶段和社会心理的态度-行为关系模型。当青少年和年轻人尝试并继续吸烟时，他们认为吸烟的积极结果比消极结果更显著。当他们成为经常吸烟者时，他们对吸烟的积极态度和结果预期变得更加固化。相反，当他们考虑放弃时，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，可能存在一个最佳时刻，当吸烟的积极和消极方面的沟通可能对影响吸烟轨迹最有影响。不幸的是，现有的文献很少提供关于如何在不同吸烟阶段的青少年和年轻人中最具说服力地沟通不吸烟和吸烟的利弊的见解，以及他们假定的有效性的可能机制。从几种健康行为和我们的试点数据中得出的证据表明，人们对被设定为得失的信息的说服方式不同。利益框架信息强调参与或不参与行动的优势；丢失帧消息强调了参与或不参与行动过程的缺点。更大规模的试验测试了得失框架信息对大龄青少年和年轻成年吸烟者（如社区大学生）戒烟意图和戒烟尝试的说服力，以及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。采用前后（1个月和6个月）两组（增益和损失帧视频）纵向实验设计，使用大约390名年龄在18-24岁之间的社区大学生，研究了增益和损失帧信息如何与跨理论模型定义的吸烟变化阶段相互作用，从而影响：1)戒烟的动机和意图，以及严重的戒烟尝试，以及2)作为阶段函数的损益框架信息影响上述结果的假定有效性的机制。本研究首次试图评估对有说服力的框架戒烟信息的反应，包括戒烟的动机/意图、戒烟的尝试和调解者，因为他们的假设有效性作为阶段的函数，很少被研究的社区大学生吸烟者群体。

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.