Dataset Information

When Similarity Strikes Back: Conditional Persuasive Effects of Character-Audience Similarity in Anti-Smoking Campaign.

ABSTRACT: Featuring an exemplar character similar to the target audience is one of the most widely used tactics of tailored and targeted communication. Having a similar character may increase the perceived relevance of the message and facilitate persuasion. However, the way the similar character is depicted may threaten the audience's social identity and cause a boomerang effect. In an experiment where daily smokers saw and evaluated anti-smoking messages, a significant interaction between character-audience similarity and message theme emerged, mediated by message engagement and character identification. Seeing a similar (vs. dissimilar) smoker character whose health was at risk increased the audience's identification with the character, which in turn was associated with greater perceived effectiveness. However, seeing a similar smoker character endangering innocent others via secondhand smoke undermined perceived effectiveness. The simple main effects of character-audience similarity on message engagement were not significant, although the overall pattern was consistent.

SUBMITTER: Kim M

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6312093 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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When Similarity Strikes Back: Conditional Persuasive Effects of Character-Audience Similarity in Anti-Smoking Campaign.

Kim Minji M

Human communication research 20181001 1

Featuring an exemplar character similar to the target audience is one of the most widely used tactics of tailored and targeted communication. Having a similar character may increase the perceived relevance of the message and facilitate persuasion. However, the way the similar character is depicted may threaten the audience's social identity and cause a boomerang effect. In an experiment where daily smokers saw and evaluated anti-smoking messages, a significant interaction between character-audie ...[more]

PMID: 30631219

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Project description:BACKGROUND:Given the long-term health effects of smoking during adolescence and the substantial role that tobacco-related morbidity and mortality play in the global burden of disease, there is a worldwide need to design and implement effective youth-focused smoking prevention interventions. While smoking prevention interventions that focus on both social competence and social influence have been successful in preventing smoking uptake among adolescents in developed countries, their effectiveness in developing countries has not yet been clearly demonstrated. SKY Girls is a multimedia, empowerment and anti-smoking program aimed at 13-16-year old girls in Accra, Ghana. The program uses school and community-based events, a magazine, movies, a radio program, social media and other promotional activities to stimulate normative and behavioral change. METHODS:This study uses pre/post longitudinal data on 2625 girls collected from an interviewer-administered questionnaire. A quasi-experimental matched design was used, incorporating comparison cities with limited or no exposure to SKY Girls (Teshie, Kumasi and Sunyani). Fixed-effects modeling with inverse probability weighting was used to obtain doubly robust estimators and measure the causal influence of SKY Girls on a set of 15 outcome indicators. RESULTS:Results indicate that living and studying in the intervention city was associated with an 11.4 percentage point (pp) (95% CI [2.1, 20.7]) increase in the proportion of girls perceiving support outside their families; an 11.7?pp. decrease (95% CI [-?20.8, -?2.6]) in girls' perception of pressure to smoke cigarettes; a 12.3?pp. increase (95% CI [2.1, 20.7]) in the proportion of girls who had conversations with friends about smoking; an 11.7?pp. increase (95% CI [3.8, 20.8]) in their perceived ability to make choices about what they like and do not like, and 20.3?pp. (95% CI [-?28.4, -?12.2]) and 12.1?pp. (95% CI [-?20.7, -?3.5]) reductions in the proportion agreeing with the idea that peers can justify smoking shisha and cigarettes, respectively. An analysis of the dose-effect associations between exposure to multiple campaign components and desired outcomes was included and discussed. CONCLUSION:The study demonstrates the effectiveness of a multimedia campaign to increase perceived support, empowerment and improve decision-making among adolescent girls in a developing country.

Project description:BackgroundThe current CONSORT guidelines for reporting pilot trials do not recommend hypothesis testing of clinical outcomes on the basis that a pilot trial is under-powered to detect such differences and this is the aim of the main trial. It states that primary evaluation should focus on descriptive analysis of feasibility/process outcomes (e.g. recruitment, adherence, treatment fidelity). Whilst the argument for not testing clinical outcomes is justifiable, the same does not necessarily apply to feasibility/process outcomes, where differences may be large and detectable with small samples. Moreover, there remains much ambiguity around sample size for pilot trials.MethodsMany pilot trials adopt a 'traffic light' system for evaluating progression to the main trial determined by a set of criteria set up a priori. We construct a hypothesis testing approach for binary feasibility outcomes focused around this system that tests against being in the RED zone (unacceptable outcome) based on an expectation of being in the GREEN zone (acceptable outcome) and choose the sample size to give high power to reject being in the RED zone if the GREEN zone holds true. Pilot point estimates falling in the RED zone will be statistically non-significant and in the GREEN zone will be significant; the AMBER zone designates potentially acceptable outcome and statistical tests may be significant or non-significant.ResultsFor example, in relation to treatment fidelity, if we assume the upper boundary of the RED zone is 50% and the lower boundary of the GREEN zone is 75% (designating unacceptable and acceptable treatment fidelity, respectively), the sample size required for analysis given 90% power and one-sided 5% alpha would be around n = 34 (intervention group alone). Observed treatment fidelity in the range of 0-17 participants (0-50%) will fall into the RED zone and be statistically non-significant, 18-25 (51-74%) fall into AMBER and may or may not be significant and 26-34 (75-100%) fall into GREEN and will be significant indicating acceptable fidelity.DiscussionIn general, several key process outcomes are assessed for progression to a main trial; a composite approach would require appraising the rules of progression across all these outcomes. This methodology provides a formal framework for hypothesis testing and sample size indication around process outcome evaluation for pilot RCTs.

Dataset Information

When Similarity Strikes Back: Conditional Persuasive Effects of Character-Audience Similarity in Anti-Smoking Campaign.

Publications

When Similarity Strikes Back: Conditional Persuasive Effects of Character-Audience Similarity in Anti-Smoking Campaign.

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