Abstract
Self-affirmation interventions can reduce defensive responses to threats to the self, but have had limited reach to the general population. We sought to create an effective and feasible version of the Kindness Questionnaire self-affirmation intervention for use on a mobile device outside the traditional university laboratory setting and by non-student participants. In an online experiment, 603 cigarette smokers (Mage= 37.5 years, SD = 10.2) were randomly assigned to one of six conditions in a 2 (Self-Affirmation: Self-Affirmation, No Self-Affirmation Control) × 3 (Example Type: Written, Imagined, No Examples) fully-crossed design. Participants read a message about the health harms of smoking. None of the self-affirmation variations were effective or feasible: the self-affirmation showed null effects on the primary outcomes of message acceptance, perceived message effectiveness, and reactance. It also backfired by reducing intentions to quit smoking and risk perceptions. Participants spent little time reading the health message, and those in the written self-affirmation condition infrequently provided detailed responses. Translating interventions developed and tested for efficacy in laboratory settings to “real-world” settings is necessary but challenging.
Highlights
Cigarette smoking is the most common preventable cause of death in the U.S (U.S Department of Health and Human Services, 2014)
Primary Outcomes We examined the effect of self-affirmation on the primary outcomes of message acceptance, perceived message effectiveness, and reactance because a basic premise of self-affirmation theory is that affirming the self makes people more capable of processing messages non-defensively (Ferrer & Cohen, 2018)
Exploratory Research Questions We explored whether the effectiveness of the self-affirmation intervention differed by subgroup
Summary
One barrier to cessation interventions is that smokers may react defensively (McQueen et al, 2013) to messages or images regarding the health consequences of continued smoking (McQueen et al, 2015). Self-affirmation interventions can reduce defensive responses to threatening information in multiple domains, including health, education, and relationships (Cohen & Sherman, 2014; Epton et al, 2015; Sweeney & Moyer, 2015). According to self-affirmation theory, people are motivated to view themselves positively and as having high integrity (Steele, 1988). When this positive self-view is threatened—such as by negative feedback about one’s harmful smoking behavior—affirming other valued aspects of the self can decrease defensive responses. Examples of affirming activities include spending time with friends, attending religious
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