The role of mood in shaping reactions to smoking cessation messages among adults who smoke: a multimodal investigation.

INTRODUCTION

Mood-tailored communications may help increase the effectiveness of smoking cessation messaging interventions. We used both self-report and psychophysiological measures to test the impact of mood on responses to cessation messages in adults who smoke.

METHODS

In a two-part (crowdsourcing and psychophysiological studies) study, the impact of 30 smoking cessation messages comprised of five themes (i.e., financial, health, quality-of-life, challenges in quitting, motivation to quit) were tested. In a crowdsourcing study, participants (N = 600) were randomly placed into one of three mood induction tasks (i.e., positive, negative, neutral), and then viewed the smoking cessation messages. After each message, they were asked to self-report their motivation to quit, message receptivity, and the perceived relevance of the messages. In an in-lab, psychophysiological study, participants (N = 42) completed the same tasks as the crowdsourcing participants but were monitored for heart rate, skin conductance, and eye-tracking while viewing the cessation messages. Using a multi-attribute decision-making model (MADM) using outcomes from both studies, messages were ranked for each mood state.

RESULTS

The top messages for participants in the positive mood condition included the challenges in quitting, financial costs/rewards, and motivations to quit themes. The top messages for participants assigned to the negative mood condition included the challenges in quitting, quality-of-life, and financial costs/rewards themes. For participants in the neutral mood condition, messages in the challenges in quitting and quality of life themes performed best.

CONCLUSIONS

Variations in the preferences of messages and themes by mood condition suggest that mood-tailored communication may increase the effectiveness of smoking cessation messages.