Roles of guilt and culture in normative influence: testing moderated mediation in the anti-secondhand smoking context

Abstract

This study simultaneously explored direct, indirect, and joint effects of types of norm messages, guilt, and culture on smokers’ behavioral intentions in the anti-secondhand smoking context. An online study among 310 smoking students in an individualistic (United States) and a collectivistic (Korea) country indicated that (1) norm messages had no conditional indirect effects on behavioral intention, (2) guilt arousal had a strong and direct impact on behavioral intention, and (3) guilt arousal and its impact on behavioral intention were stronger among Korean smokers than among US smokers.

Keywords:

• antismoking ad
• culture
• guilt
• secondhand smoke
• social norms

Acknowledgment

This research was supported by research funds provided by Hanyang University (HY-2012-N) to the corresponding author.