Tailoring messages to individual differences in monitoring-blunting styles to increase fruit and vegetable intake.

Objective: To examine whether messages matched to individuals' monitoring-blunting coping styles (MBCS) are more effective in increasing fruit and vegetable intake than mismatched messages. MBCS refers to the tendency to either attend to and amplify, or distract oneself from and minimize threatening information.

Design/setting: Randomly assigned messages were tailored to resonate with either monitors or blunters and delivered at baseline, 1 week, 2 months, and 3 months later.

A Field Experiment Testing the Utility of Regulatory Fit Messages for Promoting Physical Activity.

Guided by regulatory focus theory, we examined whether messages tailored to individuals' promotion- or prevention-goal orientation (regulatory focus) elicit positive thoughts and feelings about physical activity and increase participation in physical activity. Inactive participants (N = 206) were assigned randomly to receive either promotion-focused or prevention-focused messages encouraging physical activity. Two weeks after message exposure, we assessed participants' thoughts and feelings about physical activity and physical activity behavior.

Promoting fruit and vegetable intake through messages tailored to individual differences in regulatory focus.

Background: Researchers must identify strategies to optimize the persuasiveness of messages used in public education campaigns encouraging fruit and vegetable (FV) intake.

Purpose: This study examined whether tailoring messages to individuals' regulatory focus (RF), the tendency to be motivated by promotion versus prevention goals, increased the persuasiveness of messages encouraging greater FV intake.

Method: Participants (n = 518) completed an assessment of their RF and were randomly assigned to receive either prevention- or promotion-oriented messages.

Comparing gain- and loss-framed messages for smoking cessation with sustained-release bupropion: a randomized controlled trial.

Prospect theory suggests that because smoking cessation is a prevention behavior with a fairly certain outcome, gain-framed messages will be more persuasive than loss-framed messages when attempting to encourage smoking cessation. To test this hypothesis, the authors randomly assigned participants (N=258) in a clinical trial to either a gain- or loss-framed condition, in which they received factually equivalent video and printed messages encouraging smoking cessation that emphasized either the benefits of quitting (gains) or the costs of continuing to smoke (losses), respectively. All participants received open label sustained-release bupropion (300 mg/day) for 7 weeks.

Promoting participation in physical activity using framed messages: an application of prospect theory.

Objectives: Messages designed to motivate participation in physical activity usually emphasize the benefits of physical activity (gain-framed) as well as the costs of inactivity (loss-framed). The framing implications of prospect theory suggest that the effectiveness of these messages could be enhanced by providing gain-framed information only. We compared the effectiveness of gain-, loss-, and mixed-framed messages for promoting moderate to vigorous physical activity.

Validation of a scale for the assessment of food cravings among smokers.

Weight gain associated with smoking cessation impedes attempts to quit smoking and may lead to obesity. One factor that might contribute to weight gain is cravings for sweet or rich foods. To date, no reliable measure exists for evaluating these cravings.

Motivating cancer prevention and early detection behaviors using psychologically tailored messages.

Tailoring health messages to make them salient to recipients is a strategy to motivate cancer prevention and early detection behaviors. Various tactics can be used to tailor health materials; our approach involves tailoring messages to individual differences in the psychological processes by which people understand health information. To summarize our tailoring approach, we review findings from six field experiments (four published, two pending publication) conducted in collaboration with the National Cancer Institute's (NCI's) Cancer Information Service (CIS) examining the utility of psychologically tailored messages.

Investigating the factor structure of the Questionnaire on Smoking Urges-Brief (QSU-Brief).

This study was designed to investigate the proposed two-factor structure of the 10-item Questionnaire on Smoking Urges-Brief (QSU-Brief) and to provide evidence for the psychometric properties of this questionnaire using the seven-point scoring set from the original QSU study [Tiffany, S.T., Drobes, D.