The purpose of the present research is to investigate the effect of personal involvement on young adults’ perception of risk when exposed to negative information about smoking. It is hypothesized that smokers who are exposed to negative health information about cigarette smoking experience cognitive dissonance and be motivated to misperceive this information and rate their risk of smoking related diseases to be less than smokers in the control condition.Twenty-nine general psychology students from small liberal arts college in southern New Hampshire participated in the study for course credit. Seventeen of the participants were nonsmokers and 12 were currently smokers. Participants were given 3 questionnaires. The first questionnaire was designed to assess demographic information, participants’ smoking behaviors, and adherence to stereotypes associated with smokers. Next, participants were administered the Smoking Attitudes Scale (Adams, Shore, and Tashchian, 2000) to assess beliefs on a wide variety of smoking related issues.
Participants were then randomly assigned to either the control or smoking condition. Those in the smoking condition read facts about the negative consequences of cigarette smoking. Similarly, participants in the control condition read information about Multiple Sclerosis. Then, all participants completed identical questionnaires derived from the research of Strype, Sutton, and Rise (2002) to evaluate their perception of smoking related risks.
A 2 (condition) x 2 (smoking status) univariate analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed on each individual risk question. A main effect was found for smoking status, with smokers rating their chances of lung cancer and heart disease to be significantly greater than non-smokers. However, smokers exposed to anti-smoking information did not differ in their perception of risk in comparison to smokers in the control condition. Additionally, a 3 (attitude) x 2 (condition) ANOVA was performed on individual risk questions. As predicted, participants with more positive attitudes toward smoking were found to rate their chances of developing lung cancer to be less than those with neutral or negative attitudes.
Although the current study faced several limitations, the results have important applications for health campaigns. They suggest that anti-smoking messages should be implemented prior to the attainment of positive attitudes to ensure the accurate interpretation of the information.
Abstract Introduction Method Results Discussion Appendices References