Impact of Emotional State on Perceived Effectiveness of Anti-Vaping Public Service Announcements
Poster No:
619
Submission Type:
Abstract Submission
Authors:
Colleen Markey1, Jiaying Liu2,1, Lawrence Sweet1
Institutions:
1University of Georgia, Athens, GA, 2University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barabara, CA
First Author:
Co-Author(s):
Jiaying Liu, Ph.D.
University of California Santa Barbara|University of Georgia
Santa Barabara, CA|Athens, GA
University of California Santa Barbara|University of Georgia
Santa Barabara, CA|Athens, GA
Introduction:
Vaping is linked to often under-appreciated health risks (Jenssen et al., 2019) that have made the recent young adult (YA) vaping epidemic a significant public health concern (US Food and Drug Administration, 2018). Anti-vaping message campaigns address these concerns but have yielded modest effects on forestalling YA vaping prevalence (Boynton et al., 2023). Prior research indicates that audience characteristics (e.g., emotional states) and message features (e.g., that enhance salience for prioritized and meaningful processing) influence message perception and behavioral intentions, both of which are strongly associated with subsequent behavior (Ferrer et al., 2014; Yang et al., 2019). Thus, better understanding of mood state and perceptual salience–measured objectively using functional MRI (fMRI)–impacts on perceived message effectiveness (PME) could inform the design of more effective campaigns. This study tested whether mood state and fMRI-measured perceptual salience predict PME for anti-vaping public service announcements (PSAs) featuring emotional appeals. Increased positive affect, decreased positive affect, and neural response to PSA in perceptual salience systems were expected to be positively associated with PME.
Methods:
37 YA (18-29-year-old men and women) non-smokers, who vaped more than 15 of the prior 30 days were recruited from a university and surrounding community. They completed an anti-vaping PSA fMRI paradigm that included emotional, social, and cognitive appeals. Emotional appeals were the focus of this study. Message appeals were presented in a pseudo-randomized block design during two imaging runs. Each appeal type appeared in six 30s blocks comprised of three 10s PSAs. Scrambled control images were displayed in six 20s blocks. PME was assessed via a self-reported questionnaire following MRI. The Positive and Negative Affective Schedule (PANAS) was administered pre and post MRI. Echoplanar data were acquired using a 3T MR scanner and 32 channel head coil that yielded 2s temporal and 3.5mm3 spatial resolution. Data processing included slice-time correction, registration, outlier/motion censoring, removal of linear drift, a 5mm blur, and stereotaxic standardization. Effects per brain voxel were quantified with general linear modeling of the fMRI signal using the time course of each message type as regressors and observed movement as covariates. Hypotheses were tested separately for positive and negative affect with linear regression models predicting PME of emotional appeal anti-vaping PSAs using PANAS scores and responses in nine 5-mm radius a priori regions of interest (ROIs) as independent measures. ROIs were chosen due to associations with vaping outcomes and perceptual salience in prior literature.
Results:
All ROIs exhibited significant responses to emotional appeal PSAs (t-test vs. 0; p<.05). Pre- and post-MRI PANAS scores did not significantly differ (t (36) = 1.64, p = 0.11). All regression models including positive affect and none including negative affect were significant (Holm's corrected p<.05; Table 1). Significant main effects of PANAS (p<.05) were noted in all nine models including positive affect, and the ROI x PANAS interactions were significant (p<.05) in the predicted direction in three (nearly significant in three others), such that increases in brain activation following exposure to the emotional appeal PSA were associated with increased PME.
Conclusions:
Findings highlight the potential of fMRI neuromarkers to inform intervention efficacy and underscore the importance of considering both salience and affective states when designing health messaging. Findings suggest that positive affective states may improve the salience and effectiveness of anti-vaping PSAs among YA. Conversely, less positive affective states may attenuate the impact of emotion appeal messaging. The relatively weaker effects of negative affect models were surprising given prior literature and warrant further study.
Emotion, Motivation and Social Neuroscience:
Emotional Perception 1
Emotion and Motivation Other
Modeling and Analysis Methods:
Activation (eg. BOLD task-fMRI) 2
Novel Imaging Acquisition Methods:
BOLD fMRI
Keywords:
Addictions
MRI
1|2Indicates the priority used for review
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Please indicate below if your study was a "resting state" or "task-activation” study.
Healthy subjects only or patients (note that patient studies may also involve healthy subjects):
Was this research conducted in the United States?
Are you Internal Review Board (IRB) certified? Please note: Failure to have IRB, if applicable will lead to automatic rejection of abstract.
Were any human subjects research approved by the relevant Institutional Review Board or ethics panel? NOTE: Any human subjects studies without IRB approval will be automatically rejected.
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Provide references using APA citation style.
Ferrer, R. A., & Mendes, W. B. (2018). Emotion, health decision making, and health behaviour. Psychology & Health, 33(1), 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1080/08870446.2017.1385787
Jenssen, B. P., & Walley, S. C. (2019). E-Cigarettes and Similar Devices. Pediatrics, 143(2). https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2018-3652
U.S. Food and Drug Administration. (2018). Statement from FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb, MD, on new steps to address epidemic of youth e-cigarette use. U.S. Food and Drug Administration.https://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/PressAnnouncements/ucm620185.htm
Yang, B., Liu, J., & Popova, L. (2019). Feeling Hopeful Motivates Change: Emotional Responses to Messages Communicating Comparative Risk of Electronic Cigarettes and Combusted Cigarettes. Health Education & Behavior, 46(3), 471–483.