The Moderating Effects of Self-Referencing and Relational-Interdependent Self-Construal in Anti-Smoking Advertising for Adolescents

The tobacco epidemic is one of the most serious public health issues in the world. Tobacco use starts and becomes established primarily during adolescence, and nearly 9 out of 10 cigarette smokers first tried smoking by age 18, with 99% first trying by age 26. This study employed a 2 (advertising appeal: emotional vs. rational) by 2 (self-referencing: analytical vs. narrative) factorial design in Study 1; and a 2 (relational-interdependent self-construal: high and low) by 3 (social relational cue: self, friend, and family) factorial design in Study 2. The behavior intention of anti-smoking acted as the measured dependent variable. Samples of 192 (Study 1) and 222 (Study 2) were collected from one of the biggest high schools in northern Taiwan. The results showed advertising appeal and self-referencing had a significant interaction effect on behavior intention (p = 0.040). The results also showed rational appealing advertising is suitable for analytical self-referencing (p = 0.022) and emotional appealing advertising is suitable for narrative self-referencing (p = 0.067). However, the social relationship cue and relational-interdependent self-construal had no significant interaction effect on behavior intention, and only relational-interdependent self-construal significantly affected behavior intention (p < 0.001). Regardless of whether the relational-interdependent self-construal is high or low, when the anti-smoking advertising is from the family perspective to persuade adolescents not to smoke, both influence the adolescent more than the other two social relationship cues (self and friend).