Cigarette health warnings: The effects of perceived severity, expectancy of occurrence, and self-efficacy on intentions to give up smoking
Title:
Cigarette health warnings: The effects of perceived severity, expectancy of occurrence, and self-efficacy on intentions to give up smoking
Author:
Ho, Robert
Appeared in:
Australian psychologist
Paging:
Volume 27 (1992) nr. 2 pages 109-113
Year:
1992-07-01
Contents:
This study investigated the deterrent effectiveness of cigarette health warnings within a “protection motivation” framework. According to protection motivation theory, the motivation to protect oneself from a health threat is based on four beliefs: (a) the threat is severe, (b) one is personally vulnerable to the threat, (c) the efficacy of a recommended coping response, and (d) one is able to perform the response needed to reduce the threat. These cognitive processes mediate the persuasive effects of a fear appeal by arousing protection motivation, an intervening variable that arouses, sustains, and directs activity to protect the self from danger. In the present study, regular smokers' intentions to give up smoking were investigated in a factorial experiment involving the perceived severity of specified health threats, their probability of occurrence, and self-efficacy. A total of 109 current smokers (49 males, 60 females) participated in the study. The results corroborate past findings that self-efficacy may be a crucial factor in the way smokers react to cigarette health warnings (smoking causes lung cancer, smoking damages your lungs, smoking causes heart disease, smoking reduces your fitness), but only in interaction with the expectancy of occurrence variable. Path analysis was carried out to examine both direct and indirect effects of the health warnings on the study's criterion variables. None of the study's predictor variables were found to be associated with differences in reported cigarette consumption. These findings were discussed within the mass communication model of health behaviour as applied to smoking.
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