The success of a public health campaign predominantly lies in the persuasiveness of a health message. A large body of literature has documented cigarette warning labels as an effective health message, thereby the similar-fashioned anti-smoking messages have been printed on cigarettes for over several decades. However, we still witness a large population under potentially life-threatening risks associated with smoking. In this paper, we evaluated the perceived message effectiveness and the defensive avoidance of cigarette warnings labels to quit smoking using functional near-infrared spectroscopy. Specifically, this study tested a gain versus loss message framing and a self-affirmation approach on Asians, thereby examining the influence of culture on message persuasiveness. Moreover, neural activities along with self-reported data were analyzed. Participants (N=40) were recruited to participate in the fNIRS experiment. The results show that loss-framed messages were more persuasive than gain-framed messages. Also, gain-framed message group exhibit significantly lower defensive avoidance than loss-framed message group, but the level of defensive avoidance was higher in gain-framed group when they were self-affirmed than they are not. Finally, the level of perceived message effectiveness was higher in gain-framed group when they were self-affirmed, whereas it was almost the same for loss-framed group in both self-affirmed and control conditions.

Authors:
Eunsung Lee, Sungkyunkwan University, South Korea
Francis Joseph Costello, Sungkyunkwan University, South Korea

About the Presenter(s)
Ms Eunsung Lee is a University Doctoral Student at Sungkyunkwan University in South Korea

See this presentation on the full schedule – Sunday Schedule

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