| Globally, women's rates of smoking are rising at a rate far more accelerated than that of male counterparts. Smoking cessation can produce significant short-term benefits that accrue rapidly over time; however, women have lower motivation and readiness to quit, and poorer smoking cessation outcomes than men. The aim of the present study was to design persuasive messages intended to encourage the movement of women smokers toward cessation.;Study participants consisted of 310 women smokers between the ages of 18 and 44 years. This study was conducted through a secure, encrypted survey website (qualtrics.com). A 2 (message content: women-tailored vs. gender neutral) x 2 (message frame: loss vs. gain) design was employed, yielding four message conditions. Dependent variables consisted of measures of issue involvement and self-reported motivation to quit smoking, as measured by Likert scales, as well as, behavioral motivation to quit smoking, as measured by a behavioral choice between viewing or not viewing helpful tips for smoking cessation.;It was hypothesized that participants assigned to the women-tailored content would report the messages to be more interesting, involving, and personally relevant, as well as, demonstrate a higher degree of self-reported and behavioral motivation to quit smoking, than participants assigned to the gender-neutral content. Furthermore, an interaction effect was hypothesized, such that, the combination of women-tailored content and loss frame was expected to result in significantly greater behavioral and self-reported motivation to quit smoking than the combination of women-tailored content and gain frame, the combination of gender-neutral content and loss frame, or the combination of gender-neutral content and gain frame.;Participants assigned to the women-tailored content found the messages to be less interesting, involving, personally relevant, and reported a lower motivation to quit smoking than participants assigned to the gender-neutral content. No differences in the decision to view antismoking tips were observed between the study conditions. Furthermore, no interaction effects between content and frame conditions were observed. Overall, the study showed that tailoring antismoking message content to women smokers does not improve the effectiveness of antismoking messages, and in fact, may result in paradoxical boomerang effects. |
