Tailored Cigarette Warning Messages: How Individualized Loss Aversion and Delay Discounting Rates Can Influence Perceived Message Effectiveness

Hollie L. Tripp, Justin C. Strickland, Melissa Mercincavage, Janet Audrain-McGovern, Eric C. Donny and Andrew A. Strasser
Additional contact information
Hollie L. Tripp: Department of Psychiatry, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA
Justin C. Strickland: Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, School of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21224, USA
Melissa Mercincavage: Department of Psychiatry, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA
Janet Audrain-McGovern: Department of Psychiatry, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA
Eric C. Donny: Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Wake Forest School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, NC 27157, USA
Andrew A. Strasser: Department of Psychiatry, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 19, 1-11

Abstract: Current text-only cigarette warning labels (long-term, loss-framed messages) may not motivate positive changes in smoking behavior. The current project was a cross-sectional study examining the effects of tailored cigarette warnings on perceived message effectiveness (PME) in adult smokers ( n = 512) conducted using Amazon Mechanical Turk (M-Turk) in January–February 2020. Participants were an average age of 40.7 (SD = 11.6), with the majority of the sample being female (62.2%) and White (88.9%). Participants reported smoking an average of 14.6 cigarettes/day (SD = 9.2) with an average FTND score of 4.6 (SD = 2.2). Participants were asked to complete a tobacco use history questionnaire, and mixed gambles and delay discounting tasks before random assignment to one of five message groups. The groups were based on a 2 (gain versus loss framing) ×2 (short-term versus long-term framing) between-subject design; a fifth group served as the control group. All experimental messages reported higher PME scores than the control ( p values < 0.001, Cohen’s d = 1.88–2.48). Participants with shallower delayed reward discounting and lower loss aversion rates reported higher total PME scores, p values < 0.05. Our findings also suggest that loss aversion rates vary widely among smokers and that individuals are more responsive to messages congruent with their behavioral economic profile. Specifically, smokers who viewed messages congruent with their loss aversion and delay discounting rates reported higher PME scores than those who viewed incongruent messages ( p = 0.04, Cohen’s d = 0.24). These preliminary findings suggest that anti-smoking campaigns may best impact smokers by tailoring messages based on individual loss aversion and delay discounting rates versus a one-size-fits-all approach.

Keywords: loss aversion; framing; cigarette warning messages; delay discounting; perceived message effectiveness (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/19/10492/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/19/10492/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:19:p:10492-:d:650695

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().