Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania.
Department of Bioengineering, University of Pennsylvania.
Health Psychol. 2018 Apr;37(4):375-384. doi: 10.1037/hea0000574. Epub 2018 Feb 15.
Worldwide, tobacco use is the leading cause of preventable death and illness. One common strategy for reducing the prevalence of cigarette smoking and other health risk behaviors is the use of graphic warning labels (GWLs). This has led to widespread interest from the perspective of health psychology in understanding the mechanisms of GWL effectiveness. Here we investigated differences in how the brain responds to negative, graphic warning label-inspired antismoking ads and neutral control ads, and we probed how this response related to future behavior.
A group of smokers (N = 45) viewed GWL-inspired and control antismoking ads while undergoing fMRI, and their smoking behavior was assessed before and one month after the scan. We examined neural coherence between two regions in the brain's valuation network, the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) and ventral striatum (VS).
We found that greater neural coherence in the brain's valuation network during GWL ads (relative to control ads) preceded later smoking reduction.
Our results suggest that the integration of information about message value may be key for message influence. Understanding how the brain responds to health messaging and relates to future behavior could ultimately contribute to the design of effective messaging campaigns, as well as more broadly to theories of message effects and persuasion across domains. (PsycINFO Database Record
在全球范围内，烟草使用是可预防的死亡和疾病的主要原因。减少吸烟和其他健康风险行为的流行率的一种常见策略是使用图形警告标签（GWL）。这导致健康心理学领域广泛关注理解 GWL 有效性的机制。在这里，我们研究了大脑对负面、图形警告标签启发的反吸烟广告和中性对照广告的反应差异，并探讨了这种反应与未来行为的关系。
一组吸烟者（N=45）在 fMRI 检查期间观看了 GWL 启发和对照反吸烟广告，并且在扫描前和扫描后一个月评估了他们的吸烟行为。我们检查了大脑估值网络中两个区域（内侧前额叶皮层（MPFC）和腹侧纹状体（VS））之间的神经连贯性。
我们发现，在 GWL 广告（相对于对照广告）期间大脑估值网络中的神经连贯性增加，这与后来的吸烟减少有关。
我们的结果表明，关于信息价值的信息整合可能是信息影响的关键。了解大脑对健康信息的反应以及与未来行为的关系，最终可能有助于设计有效的信息宣传活动，以及更广泛地帮助信息效果和跨领域说服的理论。
