ABSTRACT

Insufficient scientific evidence about electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) has led to conflicting recommendations (CRs) by credible scientific organizations, creating a public health debate that could prove especially difficult to reconcile as current and former smokers make decisions about whether to use e-cigarettes. To investigate how CRs about e-cigarettes may affect intentions to engage in healthy behaviors, 717 former and current smokers were randomly exposed to one of five conditions (varying in the level of conflict in recommendations) in this between-subject experiment. Our results indicated a significant interaction between the message level of conflict and individuals’ information avoidance, employed to maintain hope and deniability. These results suggest the effects of CRs stemming from scientific uncertainty vary with subgroups of people, pointing to several pressing theoretical and practical implications.

摘要

关于电子烟的科学证据不足，导致可靠的科学组织提出了相互矛盾的建议 (CR)，从而引发了一场公共卫生辩论，当现在和以前的吸烟者决定是否使用电子烟时，这场辩论可能会特别难以调和。为了调查有关电子烟的 CR 如何影响健康行为的意图，在这项受试者间实验中，717 名曾经吸烟者和当前吸烟者被随机暴露于五种条件之一（建议的冲突程度不同）。我们的结果表明，冲突的信息水平与个人的信息回避之间存在显着的相互作用，用于维持希望和否认。这些结果表明，由于科学不确定性而产生的 CR 的影响因人群而异，指出了一些紧迫的理论和实践意义。