THE ESSENTIAL
- In France, smoking is responsible for more than 75,000 deaths per year.
- Smoking is involved in the occurrence of certain cancers (cancer of the lung, upper aerodigestive tract, bladder cancer, etc.) but also promotes certain cardiovascular and respiratory diseases.
“Nostalgia-evoking messages are used to promote consumer products, but their use to encourage healthy behaviors is not well understood,” said researchers at Michigan State University in the United States. In order to determine whether advertisements appealing to the good memories of smokers might encourage them to quit smoking, scientists carried out a study, including the results were published in the journal Communication Research Reports.
The use of videos evoking nostalgia
“Many anti-tobacco messages are centered around fear, loathing and guilt. But often smokers are unconvinced by these messages and feel rather bad regarding themselves and the person trying to make them feel bad. fear”, said Ali Hussain, co-author of the work, in a statement. For research purposes, the authors conducted an experiment with 169 smokers aged 18 to 39.
The participants were divided into two groups. The first viewed videos from current anti-smoking campaigns. The second group looked at images of childhood memories on which were displayed phrases, such as “I remember when I was a boy” and “I miss the simplicity of life”. At the end, the narrator remembers when he first smoked.
Nostalgia, the solution to quit smoking!
“Participants who viewed the nostalgia-evoking video expressed more negative attitudes toward smoking and stronger intentions to limit their consumption than participants exposed to non-nostalgic messages,” can we read in the study. According to the researchers, this reaction was particularly observed in women.
Videos evoking nostalgia appeal to smokers’ fondest memories, scientists say, making them feel more concerned, and this feeling of nostalgia influences their attitudes and behaviors. “These findings suggest that nostalgia-appealing messages are a promising strategy for tobacco awareness campaigns,” concluded the authors.
