Tailoring messages to individual differences in monitoring-blunting styles to increase fruit and vegetable intake.

OBJECTIVE: To examine whether messages matched to individuals' monitoring-blunting coping styles (MBCS) are more effective in increasing fruit and vegetable intake than mismatched messages. MBCS refers to the tendency to either attend to and amplify, or distract oneself from and minimize threatening information. DESIGN/SETTING: Randomly assigned messages were tailored to resonate with either monitors or blunters and delivered at baseline, 1 week, 2 months, and 3 months later. Surveys were conducted at baseline and 2 and 4 months later. PARTICIPANTS: 531 callers to a cancer information hotline who did not meet the 5 A Day guideline. INTERVENTION: A brief telephone-delivered message and 3 mailings of booklets and promotional items encouraging fruit and vegetable intake, tailored for either monitors or blunters. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: Fruit and vegetable intake 2 and 4 months post-baseline. ANALYSIS: Hierarchical regression modeling. RESULTS: Messages matched to MBCS were more effective than mismatched messages, particularly for the monitor message, in increasing intake at 2 months but not at 4 months. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: These minimal interventions influenced fruit and vegetable intake. MBCS may be a promising target for developing tailored messages aimed at increasing intake, although additional research is needed to verify the robustness of these findings.

Promoting fruit and vegetable intake through messages tailored to individual differences in regulatory focus.

BACKGROUND: Researchers must identify strategies to optimize the persuasiveness of messages used in public education campaigns encouraging fruit and vegetable (FV) intake. PURPOSE: This study examined whether tailoring messages to individuals' regulatory focus (RF), the tendency to be motivated by promotion versus prevention goals, increased the persuasiveness of messages encouraging greater FV intake. METHOD: Participants (n = 518) completed an assessment of their RF and were randomly assigned to receive either prevention- or promotion-oriented messages. Messages were mailed 1 week, 2 months, and 3 months after the baseline interview. Follow-up assessments were conducted 1 and 4 months after the baseline assessment. RESULTS: Regression analyses revealed that at Month 4, the messages were somewhat more efficacious when congruent with participants' RF. CONCLUSION: RF may be a promising target for developing tailored messages promoting increased FV intake, and particularly for encouraging individuals to meet FV guidelines.

Promoting participation in physical activity using framed messages: an application of prospect theory.

OBJECTIVES: Messages designed to motivate participation in physical activity usually emphasize the benefits of physical activity (gain-framed) as well as the costs of inactivity (loss-framed). The framing implications of prospect theory suggest that the effectiveness of these messages could be enhanced by providing gain-framed information only. We compared the effectiveness of gain-, loss-, and mixed-framed messages for promoting moderate to vigorous physical activity. DESIGN: Randomized trial. METHOD: Sedentary, healthy callers to the US National Cancer Institute's Cancer Information Service (N=322) received gain-, loss-, or mixed-framed messages on three occasions (baseline, Week 1, and Week 5). Social cognitive variables and self-reported physical activity were assessed at baseline, Week 2, and Week 9. Separate regression analyses were conducted to examine message effects at each assessment point. RESULTS: At Week 2, gain- and mixed-framed messages resulted in stronger intentions and greater self-efficacy than loss-framed messages. At Week 9, gain-framed messages resulted in greater physical activity participation than loss- or mixed-framed messages. Social cognitive variables at Week 2 did not mediate the Week 9 framing effects on physical activity participation. CONCLUSIONS: Using gain-framed messages exclusively may be a means of increasing the efficacy of physical activity materials.

A Field Experiment Testing the Utility of Regulatory Fit Messages for Promoting Physical Activity.

Guided by regulatory focus theory, we examined whether messages tailored to individuals' promotion- or prevention-goal orientation (regulatory focus) elicit positive thoughts and feelings about physical activity and increase participation in physical activity. Inactive participants (N = 206) were assigned randomly to receive either promotion-focused or prevention-focused messages encouraging physical activity. Two weeks after message exposure, we assessed participants' thoughts and feelings about physical activity and physical activity behavior. Tailored messages that fit individuals' regulatory focus led to greater physical activity participation and more positive feelings than non-fit messages, particularly in the promotion-focused condition. Furthermore, positive retrospective feelings about physical activity mediated the effects of the tailored messages on behavior. These findings provide support for regulatory focus theory and direction for enhancing the effectiveness of messages encouraging physical activity and other health behaviors.

Validation of a scale for the assessment of food cravings among smokers.

Weight gain associated with smoking cessation impedes attempts to quit smoking and may lead to obesity. One factor that might contribute to weight gain is cravings for sweet or rich foods. To date, no reliable measure exists for evaluating these cravings. The purpose of the current study was to validate an assessment of craving for sweet or rich foods for use among smokers. With a sample of 385 smokers enrolled in a clinical trial for smoking cessation, the study examined the factor structure, internal consistency, and convergent and predictive validity of the Questionnaire on Craving for Sweet or Rich Foods (QCSRF). A two-factor model best represented the data. Factor 1 contained six items assessing perceptions about the ability of sweet or rich foods to relieve negative affect and about self-control over eating. Factor 2 contained three items assessing the intensity of cravings. Both factors demonstrated high internal consistency and good convergent and predictive validity. These results suggest the QCSRF is a reliable and valid measure for examining cravings for sweet or rich foods among smokers.

Comparing gain- and loss-framed messages for smoking cessation with sustained-release bupropion: a randomized controlled trial.

Prospect theory suggests that because smoking cessation is a prevention behavior with a fairly certain outcome, gain-framed messages will be more persuasive than loss-framed messages when attempting to encourage smoking cessation. To test this hypothesis, the authors randomly assigned participants (N=258) in a clinical trial to either a gain- or loss-framed condition, in which they received factually equivalent video and printed messages encouraging smoking cessation that emphasized either the benefits of quitting (gains) or the costs of continuing to smoke (losses), respectively. All participants received open label sustained-release bupropion (300 mg/day) for 7 weeks. In the intent-to-treat analysis, the difference between the experimental groups by either point prevalence or continuous abstinence was not statistically significant. Among 170 treatment completers, however, a significantly higher proportion of participants were continuously abstinent in the gain-framed condition as compared with the loss-framed condition. These data suggest that gain-framed messages may be more persuasive than loss-framed messages in promoting early success in smoking cessation for participants who are engaged in treatment.

Investigating the factor structure of the Questionnaire on Smoking Urges-Brief (QSU-Brief).

This study was designed to investigate the proposed two-factor structure of the 10-item Questionnaire on Smoking Urges-Brief (QSU-Brief) and to provide evidence for the psychometric properties of this questionnaire using the seven-point scoring set from the original QSU study [Tiffany, S.T., Drobes, D.J. (1991). The development and initial validation of a questionnaire on smoking urges. British Journal of Addiction, 86, 1467-1476.]. The study sample (N=576) was comprised of smokers presenting for treatment. Although an initial exploratory factor analysis appeared to replicate the original factor analytic findings of Cox et al. [Cox, L.S., Tiffany, S.T., Christen, A.G. (2001). Evaluation of the brief questionnaire of smoking urges (QSU-Brief) in laboratory and clinical settings. Nicotine and Tobacco Research, 3, 7-16.], when subjected to confirmatory factor analyses, a five-item, two-factor model using the most robust items from the original QSU-Brief factor analysis was the best explanation of the data in the present study. Good internal consistency reliability estimates were also obtained with this model. These results suggest that this shortened form of the QSU-Brief can be used with the original seven-point scoring set as a reliable assessment of the dual nature of smoking urges in a treatment-seeking population.

Motivating cancer prevention and early detection behaviors using psychologically tailored messages.

Tailoring health messages to make them salient to recipients is a strategy to motivate cancer prevention and early detection behaviors. Various tactics can be used to tailor health materials; our approach involves tailoring messages to individual differences in the psychological processes by which people understand health information. To summarize our tailoring approach, we review findings from six field experiments (four published, two pending publication) conducted in collaboration with the National Cancer Institute's (NCI's) Cancer Information Service (CIS) examining the utility of psychologically tailored messages. Messages were tailored to individual variability in the following: (a) need for cognition, (b) monitor/blunting coping style, (c) health locus of control, and (d) regulatory focus. Collectively, the findings suggest that, as hypothesized, messages congruent with the recipients' psychological style of health information processing (i.e., matched messages) are more persuasive in promoting screening mammography and fruit and vegetable consumption than mismatched messages. This line of research provides evidence for the utility of psychological tailoring as a health communication strategy and direction for developing effective health messages in a variety of settings.