Cigarette Placement in Movies: Priming Tobacco Risk-Related Warnings and its Social Effects on Youths

Abstract

Previous research have stated that cigarette placement in movies seemed to increase the intention to smoke among teenagers and cigarette placement in movies has grown steadily (Dalton et al., 2003; Pechmann et al. 2003). Pechmann and Shih (1999) found that smoking scenes increased their intent to smoke and that an antismoking advertisement shown before the film nullified these effects. We extend this previous research by focusing on the social risk component and by using a social related antismoking warning. This paper investigates whether priming an antismoking warning would affect the social risk perceived by adolescents before viewing a cigarette placement in a movie. The basic question that guides this research is the following: how would adolescents perceive social risks after having been exposed to a cigarette movie placement? Would they perceive social risks as less severe? Is the introduction of a warning message before the smoking scene enough to counter the effects of the cigarette placement on the perception of the social risk endured by smokers?