Influence of online comments on smokers’ E-cigarette attitude: Opinion climate, review fraud, and resistance to persuasion

Abstract

Objective

This study examined the effect of online comments on smokers’ attitude toward trying e-cigarettes. It also explored the effect of an unobtrusive forewarning in increasing smokers’ resistance to online review fraud.

Design

739 adult smokers participated in an experiment with a 2 comment valence (supportive vs. oppositional) x 3 comment deception warning (no warning vs. early warning vs. late warning) + 1 control (no comment) factorial design. Smokers watched two e-cigarette commercials. The control group received only the ads. The treatment groups saw 10 to 12 comments following each ad.

Main Outcome Measure: E-cigarette attitude.

Results

Smokers who read supportive (M = 5.28, SD = 1.37), oppositional (M = 4.96, SD = 1.53), and no comment (M = 5.44, SD = 1.20) showed significant difference on their e-cigarettes attitude, p = .004. When the comment climate was overly in favor of e-cigarettes, warning smokers of review fraud could raise their awareness of comment deception, increase defensive processing, decrease their social identification with commenters, and eventually lower their interest in trying e-cigarettes.

Conclusion

The overall opinion climate in the form of aggregated valence of comments could sway smokers’ e-cigarette attitude. Smokers could benefit from warnings of online review fraud.

Keywords:

• electronic cigarette
• social influence
• forewarning
• inoculation

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) under Grant nos. P50CA095856 and 1U01CA154254]. We acknowledge that the NIH do not bear any responsibility for the content reported in this article.