Disgust in fear appeal anti-smoking advertisements: The effects on attitudes and abstinence motivation

Abstract

Aims: The use of fear appeals with disgusting graphical content is part of current practice in health campaigns. Previous studies have suggested both a detrimental and a beneficial effect of disgust in fear appeals on different types of outcome measures. We were interested in whether disgust in anti-smoking messages decreases or increases persuasion as measured by motivation to abstain from smoking and attitudes towards smoking. Methods: In two online experiments (total N = 1045), smokers (26%) and non-smokers were randomly assigned to watch fear appeal anti-smoking ads that elicited high versus moderate levels of disgust but similar levels of fear. Smokers reported motivation to quit, while non-smokers reported motivation to not start smoking. All participants reported explicit attitudes toward smoking and performed an Implicit Association Test that measures implicit attitudes toward smoking and cigarettes. Findings: There were no differences between these conditions, except on a measure of implicit attitudes. However, this effect was not replicated in the second study, and analyses across studies revealed no substantial difference between the conditions. Conclusions: In the current context, there were no or potentially very small benefits of using disgust elements when level of fear was held constant (i.e. compared to other means of inducing negative emotions).

• Anti-smoking
• attitudes
• disgust
• fear appeal
• motivation

Declaration of interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Notes

¹Note that motivation to quit and motivation to abstain represent different behaviours and are measured in different ways. For this reason, we ran separate analyses on the two measures, instead of using smoking as a control factor in a single analysis of abstinence motivation.