The Effect Of Mortality Salience On Smoking Attitudes Of Smokers

The report of WHO shows that there are more than 11 million smokers all over the world.Chinese smokers accounted for 31%which is the world's largest number in the world.Smoking seriously affected the physical and mental health of people.The problem of smoking has become one of the problems that have been paid much attention to,especially in the field of psychology.First,this study reviews the researches on smoking attitudes from home and abroad,then combs the researches on the effect of supraliminal and subliminal mortality salience on smoking attitudes,and points out that the shortcomings of previous studies.My own research program is proposed based on those.It discusses the effect of different kinds of supraliminal and subliminal mortality salience on explicit and implicit smoking attitudes of smokers who have different degree of smoking addiction and different level of self-esteem through the three studies and a series of nine experiments.Research 1 studies the effect of supraliminal and subliminal mortality salience on explicit and implicit smoking attitude of smokers by self-report and SA-IAT.The material used for mortality salience is the death pictures.It is found that in explicit attitude measurement,the supraliminal mortality salience can be effective in increasing participants' intention to quit smoking,and no difference is found between subliminal mortality salience and the control.Unexpectedly,there is no difference to be found between the supraliminal mortality salience,subliminal mortality salience,and the control in participants' implicit smoking attitude.Research 2 studied the effect of the health-related and social exclusion supraliminal mortality salience on the smoking attitude of smokers who have different degree of smoking addiction and different level of self-esteem in experiment 2 and experiment 3.The health-related supraliminal mortality salience is conducted with death pictures and "Smoking hazards to health" investigation report.The social exclusion supraliminal mortality salience is conducted with death pictures and"Smoking lead to social exclusion" investigation report.The results of experiment 2 and experiment 3 shows that the health-related supraliminal mortality salience can be effective in increasing participants' intention to quit smoking,and no difference was found between social exclusion supraliminal mortality salience and the control.The participants with mild smoking addiction who read the health-related report are more likely to quit smoking compared to those who read the social exclusion report or those who read dental pain(control).For the participants with deep smoking addiction,there is no difference between health-related supraliminal mortality salience,social exclusion supraliminal mortality salience and the control.For both low self-esteem and high self-esteem participants,who read the health-related report are more likely to quit smoking compared to those who read the social exclusion report or those who read dental pain(control).Experiment 4 and experiment 5 in research 2 uses two open-ended questions of death for the general supraliminal mortality salience,parallel questions are presented in the cancer(specific supraliminal mortality salience)and dental pain(control).The results of experiment 4 and experiment 5 reveals that both general supraliminal mortality salience and specific supraliminal mortality salience can be effective in increasing participants' intention to quit smoking,and there is no difference betweenthem.The participants with mild smoking addiction who answers the questions of death and those who answers the questions of cancer are more likely to quit smoking compared to those who answer the questions of dental pain(control).For the participants with deep smoking addiction,there is no difference between general supraliminal mortality salience,specific supraliminal mortality salience and the control.Both low self-esteem and high self-esteem participants who answer the questions of death and those who answer questions of cancer are more likely to quit smoking compared to those who answer questions of dental pain(control).Research 3 studies the effect of the health-related and social exclusion subliminal mortality salience on the smoking attitudes of smokers who have different degree of smoking addiction and different level of self-esteem in experiment 6 and experiment 7,and the effect of the general and specific subliminal mortality salience in experiment 8 and experiment 9.The results of experiment 6 shows that the social exclusion subliminal mortality salience can be effective in increasing participants'intention to quit smoking,and no difference is found between health-related subliminal mortality salience and the control.Both the participants with mild and deep smoking addiction,who read the social exclusion report are more likely to quit smoking compared to those who read the health-related report or those who read dental pain(control).The results of experiment 7 shows that the low self-esteem participants who read the social exclusion report are more likely to quit smoking compared to those who read the health-related report or those who read dental pain(control).For the participants with deep smoking addiction,there is no difference between health-related subliminal mortality salience,social exclusion subliminal mortality salience and the control.The results of experiment 8 and experiment 9 reveals that for the participants with different degree of smoking addiction and different level of self-esteem participants,there is no difference between general subliminal mortality salience,specific subliminal mortality salience and the control.In conclusion,mortality salience can only change the smoking explicit attitude of smokers,but cannot change the smoking implicit attitude of smokers.Supraliminal mortality salience,health-related,general and specific supraliminal mortality salience can improve smokers' intention to quit smoking,and social exclusion subliminal mortality salience can improve smokers' intention to quit smoking.Smoking addiction degree can only moderate the effect of supraliminal mortality salience on smoking attitude of smokers,and self-esteem level can only moderate the effect of subliminal mortality salience on smoking attitude of smokers.The research results of this study has certain theoretical significance and practical value,which is conducive to the further development and improvement of the terror management of health model,which also plays an enlightening role on how to develop effective anti-smoking measures in our country.