Addiction Recovery Research Center, Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC, Roanoke, VA, USA.
Graduate Program in Translational Biology, Medicine, and Health, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA.
Drug Alcohol Depend. 2019 Apr 1;197:203-211. doi: 10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2019.01.020. Epub 2019 Feb 19.
The Experimental Tobacco Marketplace (ETM) is a digital storefront in which participants can purchase tobacco products using an account balance that reflects their typical tobacco product purchasing. The ETM is also an ideal resource to investigate the harm-reduction potential of alternative nicotine products such as e-cigarettes. In a series of experiments, we explored the effects of harm-reduction narratives that encouraged e-cigarette substitution of conventional cigarettes in the ETM. These narratives incorporated different cognitive biases in order to determine which strategy is most effective.
In both experiments, participants, recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk, read a narrative about a friend that either falls ill or faces financial difficulties and then made purchases in the ETM. Some of these narratives specifically incorporated different cognitive biases including trusting authority. Across ETM trials, the price of conventional cigarettes increased while the price of the alternative products, including e-cigarettes, remained constant.
Across both experiments, a general pattern emerged supporting the effectiveness of narratives in increasing e-cigarette purchasing. Importantly, from a harm-reduction perspective, this increase in e-cigarette substitution frequently corresponded with a decrease in conventional cigarette purchasing.
Narratives can decrease conventional cigarette and increase e-cigarette purchasing in an ETM that mimics real-world marketplaces. Invoking different cognitive biases may bolster this effect. Narratives can be a valuable harm-reduction tool because they are cost-effective, can be widely disseminated, and can be personalized to individuals.
实验性烟草市场（ETM）是一个数字店面，参与者可以使用反映其典型烟草产品购买情况的账户余额购买烟草产品。ETM 也是研究电子烟等替代尼古丁产品减少危害潜力的理想资源。在一系列实验中，我们探讨了鼓励 ETM 中电子烟替代传统香烟的减少危害叙述的影响。这些叙述结合了不同的认知偏差，以确定哪种策略最有效。
在这两项实验中，参与者均通过亚马逊 Mechanical Turk 招募，阅读关于一位朋友生病或面临经济困难的叙述，然后在 ETM 中进行购买。这些叙述中的一些特别纳入了不同的认知偏差，包括信任权威。在整个 ETM 试验中，传统香烟的价格上涨，而替代产品（包括电子烟）的价格保持不变。
这两项实验都出现了一个普遍的模式，支持叙述在增加电子烟购买方面的有效性。重要的是，从减少危害的角度来看，这种电子烟替代的增加通常伴随着传统香烟购买的减少。
叙述可以减少 ETM 中的传统香烟购买并增加电子烟购买，该 ETM 模仿了真实的市场。利用不同的认知偏差可能会增强这种效果。叙述可以成为一种有价值的减少危害工具，因为它们具有成本效益、可以广泛传播并且可以针对个人进行个性化定制。
