Visual and Auditory Message Framing Effects on Tobacco Smoking¹

Abstract

Persuasive health messages can be framed to emphasize the benefits of adopting a health behavior (gains) or the risks of not adopting it (losses). This study examined the effects of message framing on beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors relevant to cigarette smoking. In video presentations about tobacco smoking, visual images and auditory voiceover content were framed either as gains or losses, yielding 4 message conditions. Undergraduates ( N = 437) attending a public university in New England were assigned randomly to view one of these messages. Gain-framed messages about smoking in visual and auditory modalities shifted smoking-related beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors in the direction of avoidance and cessation. Health-communication experts, when promoting prevention behaviors like smoking avoidance or cessation, may wish to diverge from the tradition of using lossframed messages and fear appeals in this domain, and instead consider using gain-framed appeals that present the advantages of not smoking.Persuasive messages encouraging smoking cessation are usually designed to elicit feelings of threat or fear by presenting the negative consequences of cigarette smoking. For example, the Surgeon General's warnings on cigarette packs emphasize the health dangers associated with smoking (e.g., emphysema, heart disease, death).

Comparing gain- and loss-framed messages for smoking cessation with sustained-release bupropion: A randomized controlled trial.

“…Schneider, Salovey, Pallonen, et al (2001) noted a decrease in number of cigarettes smoked among participants who received gain-framed messages, and Steward et al (2003) reported greater intentions to quit among participants in the gain-framed condition. In our report, the measure of time to the first cigarette was more sensitive to message framing effects than categorical outcomes.Taken together with prior findings (Schneider, Salovey, Pallonen, et al, 2001;Steward et al, 2003), the results of this study are consistent with the hypothesis that messages promoting smoking cessation are more persuasive if they emphasize the gains associated with quitting smoking rather than the losses associated with continued smoking, although the advantage of gain-framing was not as robustly observed here as compared with previous studies. Future studies should examine whether integrating gain-framed messages into counseling protocols can enhance these effects.…”

Enhancing the effectiveness of tobacco package warning labels: a social psychological perspective

“…Schneider and colleagues 11 found that gain-framed health messages (for example, "Quitting smoking reduces your chances of premature death and illness") were more effective than the same messages rewritten so that they were loss-framed (for example, "Smoking increases your chances of premature death and illness") in changing smoking related beliefs, attitudes, and behaviours.…”

Visual Reminders and Patient Compliance of Type 2 Diabetics

“…These results conflict with data from other studies using a visual reminder. Previous research has shown that both positively and negatively phrased visual messages can affect health related behaviors and attitudes, specifically related to smoking [19]. In their work, subjects' attitudes toward smoking as well as cigarette consumption improved with either phrased message, but more so with positively worded messages.…”

“…However, this technique has been evaluated in areas such as sunscreen use, smoking cessation, and dieting [17][18][19]. The literature is lacking in terms of evaluating this technique in the application of a disease management program or with T2DM as the focus.…”