Helping smokers to quit through increasing their appreciation of health risks information

Materials: The proposed study will be administered entirely via computer surveys and procedures, either using a study laptop or online for participants wishing to complete the study on a personal computer from home. Self-affirmation manipulation, threat message (smoking risk information), and survey questions will be compiled into a survey battery accessed via laptop or a secured web address. Participants will be asked to fill out the questionnaire once only (which includes self-affirmation task and warning message) and should take approximately 40 minutes. Randomization: Participants will be randomised to either the self-affirmation or control condition. The study will utilise a cross-over design, where by at the conclusion of their participation, both control and treatment group participants would have been self-affirmed; the treatment group before health risk information, and control group after health risk information. After screening for eligibility, participants will be provided with the online survey website address, a unique subject identification number and unique password to access the study survey. This unique password will also randomly allocate the participant to one of the two conditions. Self-affirmation manipulation: The present study will use the Classification of Character Strengths to manipulate self-affirmation in participants. This measure has been shown to reliably manipulate self-affirmation and is well suited to computer/online administered questionnaire forms. For the treatment group, self-affirmation manipulation will be presented prior to the threat message to ensure greatest effect. To check if self-affirmation manipulation has occurred, participants will be asked to rate their ‘overall feeling’ from ‘very bad’ to ‘very good’. By situating this question at the end of the questionnaire any theoretical possibility such a check could annul the self-affirmation effect will be avoided. Subjects in the control group will be asked to complete a time matched non-self-referent task before the health risk information where instead of rating themselves, they will be asked to rate a well-known personality on the same attributes. Control and treatment groups will conclude their respective questionnaire with the alternative forms of the Classification of Character Strengths (self-affirmation questionnaire). Smoking risk information: Health risk information will be provided to participants in the form of a short government sponsored quit smoking/anti-smoking advertisement (for example; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjrnaHInUHM). It is anticipated that a visual and auditory presentation of risk information will elicit a more threatening response than text or picture alone. Smoking risk information is presented to both groups, embedded approximately midway through the questionnaire.