How Do Behavioral Framing, Linguistic Certainty, and Target Specification Impact Responses to Vaping Prevention Messages?

While research on youth vaping prevention has begun to grow, little work has examined language choice in vaping prevention messages. This study examined adolescents' responses to vaping prevention statements that varied on three features: behavioral framing, linguistic certainty, and target specification. We conducted a 2 (behavioral framing) by 2 (linguistic certainty) by 2 (target specification) by 3 (risk type) plus control condition between-subjects experiment using a national probability sample. Adolescents (N = 1,603) were randomly assigned to one of 25 conditions in which they viewed a vaping prevention statement (or a control statement about vape litter) followed by measures of perceived message effectiveness (PME), perceived severity and susceptibility of vaping risks, message trustworthiness, message relevance, and intentions to seek more information about vaping risks. Results showed main effects of behavioral framing, such that a declarative frame ("Vaping can … ") led to higher PME, higher perceived severity, and greater information seeking intentions than a contingent frame ("If you vape, it can…"), while an interaction revealed that most declarative frame effects were driven by adolescents who were susceptible to vaping. There were also main effects of linguistic certainty, such that the word "can" ("Vaping can … ") led to higher PME, higher perceived susceptibility and severity, and greater information seeking intentions than the word "could" ("Vaping could … "). No main effect of target specification ("you" vs. "teens") was observed. Overall, findings suggest that vaping prevention messages that communicate greater certainty have greater behavior change potential.