Fear appeals in anti-smoking advertising: How important is self-efficacy?

Abstract

Fear appeals are frequently used in anti-smoking advertising. The evidence on the effectiveness of fear appeals is mixed, and in some studies strong fear appeals have been found to reinforce the undesirable behaviour. Individual self-efficacy may play a role in moderating the effects of fear appeals. In advertising contexts where the intention was to encourage socially desirable behaviours, it has been shown that greater self-efficacy is associated with a more positive response to fear appeals. Similarly, in such contexts, the perceived ethicality of a fear-appeal advertisement appears to be positively related to self-efficacy. The purpose of this article is to examine the relationship between self-efficacy, perceived ethicality, and the impact of advertising on behavioural intentions in a context where the aim is to discourage undesirable behaviour, namely anti-smoking advertising. Questionnaire data were gathered from 434 respondents in London, England. Respondents with higher reported self-efficacy were found to have more favourable views of the ethicality of fear-appeal advertising, more positive attitudes towards the advertising, and stronger intentions to quit smoking. It is recommended that when using fear appeals in advertising to discourage undesirable behaviour, advertisers should incorporate messages designed to enhance self-efficacy.     

The influence of product-placement type & exposure time on product-placement recognition

This study examines the extent to which product-placement type and exposure time explain the rate at which viewers recognise brand names affiliated with product placements in films. The results support the industry practice of classifying product placements into creative and on-set, since placement type has a significant impact on viewer recognition, even when the measure of viewer recognition is adjusted for the effects of false recognition. The effect of exposure time attained by product placement on viewer recognition is moderated by product-placement type. The theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed.     

Conspiracy in Industry or Conspiracy in Academe? A Review of Yoshiro Miwa and J. Mark Ramseyer,The Fable of the Keiretsu: Urban Legends of the Japanese Economy

During the 1980s, a widespread belief that the Japanese economy was outperforming that of the US led to a search for causes. Perhaps top on the list was a view that the Japanese had rejected the US model of private market competition, substituting for it the use of very large horizontal and vertical cooperatives, known as keiretsu. These keiretsu were thought to follow the instruction of main banks and the Japanese government rather than their own entrepreneurial insight. Miwa and Ramseyer's book (2006 Miwa, Y. and Ramseyer, J.M. 2006. The Fable of the Keiretsu: Urban Legends of the Japanese Economy, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. [Crossref] [Google Scholar]) sets out a detailed case against all of these claims. While the argument about the role of the keiretsu is significant, perhaps more important is the authors' explanation of why the ‘fable’ was thought real by academics as well as the policy and business community.     

Cultural Meaning,Advertising, and National Culture: A Four-Country Study

Cultural meaning transfer theory and GLOBE dimensions were employed in this comparative study to examine the extent to which cultural meaning presented in advertisements reflected national cultures of the target countries. Content analysis was applied to advertisements from four countries to investigate whether the use of advertising appeals presented in these advertisements mirrored variations in cultures as described by GLOBE Society Values. Results revealed that, in line with the hypotheses, there were similarities and differences in the use of appeals, and only some of them mirrored the cultural variations. GLOBE Society Values were more likely to predict the use of appeals than GLOBE Society Practices, but not for all appeals. Advertisers can draw on national cultures for cultural meanings to be used in advertisements only to a limited extent. It may be that advertisements mold rather than mirror societal values, or that only certain cultural traits are important for advertisers.     

The food crisis and environmental conservation in Africa

In spite of good rains in Africa in 1985, 30-35 million people suffered the effects of famine. Much of Africa is still dependent on food aid. The main causes of insufficient food production are land degradation--desertification--and high population growth. Distribution of the US $2.9 billion in food and non-food aid has been hampered by transport and logistical problems. The major challenge for 1986 is non-food support. Only US $460 million (15.3%) of non-food aid had been received as of March. Country profiles of Angola, Chad, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Somalia, Sudan, Lesotho, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Zambia show a pattern of high food assistance needs and displaced refugee populations. The 1st 6 of the group suffer from civil strife. There is some good news; e.g. Niger, which is embarking on agressive agricultural development, and Tanzania, which has enjoyed bumper crops, but the crisis is clearly far from over. Few African Governments have been willing to face the population problem; population in the area will probably continue to increase at 3% yearly. It is shown that desertification: reducing the biological potential of the land through over-exploitation, animal husbandry, and deforestation, is a wordwide problem particularly acute in Africa. Lost production totals $26 billion annually. Straightforward cost-benefit analysis of projects to halt or reverse the problem does not adequately take factors such as human attachment to the land into account. Unfortunately halting desertification does not receive the attention it should receive from donor agencies. Investment goes towards high-return projects, e.g. power dams; sugar factories, when a more careful study reveals that returns from afforestations are much more long-term. There has been increased consciousness of the long-term benefits of dryland rehabilitation, which will hopefully impact policy in the future. But since desertification is a self-accelerating process, there is a need for very rapid action.     

Investment analysis and the adjustment of stock prices to common information

In this article we are concerned with the effect of the numberof investment analysts following a firm on the speed of adjustmentof the firm's stock price to new information that has commoneffects across firms. It is found that returns on portfoliosof firms that are followed by many analysts tend to lead thoseof firms that are followed by fewer analysts, even when thefirms are of approximately the same size. Many analyst firmsalso tend to respond more rapidly to market returns than dofew analyst firms, adjusting for firm size. This relation, however,is nonlinear, and the marginal effect of the number of analystson the speed of price adjustment increases with the number ofanalysts.     

Information, trade, and derivative securities

Hellwig's (1980) model is used to analyze the value of improvingtrading opportunities by more frequent trading in the underlyingasset, or by trading in a derivative asset. With multiple tradingsessions, uninformed investors behave as rational trend followers,while more informed investors follow a contrarian strategy.As trading becomes continuous, Pareto efficiency is achieved.With trading in an appropriate derivative security, Pareto efficiencymay be achieved in only a single round of trading. All derivativeclaims are then priced on Black and Scholes (1973) principlesand, in the absence of further supply shocks, no trading willtake place in subsequent trading rounds.     

Price and yield effects of spill-overs in international agricultural research: evidence from ICRISAT and Australia

International agricultural research aimed at improving productivity in developing countries also has spill-over effects on developed countries. Research that affects the supply of commodities is also likely to affect the world price of tradeable commodities. In this paper, the effects of spill-overs to Australia from successful cost-reducing research into sorghum and chickpeas at die International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) aimed at developing countries are assessed. Genetic materials developed and distributed through ICRISAT are used in Australia to increase productivity. The price-reducing effects of successful research are incorporated into the analysis of spill-over impacts on productivity. The net effects on welfare for producers and consumers of sorghum and chickpeas in Australia and the Rest of the World (ROW) are identified. The consequences of the impacts are discussed and the implications for further funding of international agricultural research are also discussed.     

DEREGULATION AND EFFICIENCY IN GRAIN TRANSPORT

In this paper, it is argued that removing restrictions on road transport will not be sufficient to encourage efficiency improvements in grain freight industry while rail authorities continue to operate as public monopolies. This is because of the structure of costs in the grain freight industry, which imply that road transport cannot compete with rail transport in areas where road is the more efficient mode. While the tendency for a regulated monopoly to cross-subsidise inefficient operations is common place, the focus in this analysis is on the nature of the cross-subsidy in the grain freight industry, and shows that it is a type of cross-subsidy that is well hidden by aggregation. A model of investment in a rail network is presented where the monopoly power afforded to the rail industry is shown to be due to economies of traffic density. A case study of the grain rail network in Western Australia is presented where it is shown that the rail authority has been able to maintain very uneconomic sections of rail line, despite the introduction of road competition and apparently competitive pricing practices.     

The impact of seed industry concentration on innovation: a study of US biotech market leaders

Agricultural research drives increases in agricultural productivity, and the number of private agricultural input firms has been declining. The empirical relationship between the number of firms doing applied biotechnology crop research and the amount of research output they produce is investigated in a research profit function model. Increases in seed industry concentration have reduced biotech research intensity in the United States in the 1990s. Concentration and research are simultaneously determined and are influenced by the appropriability of research results and the state of technological opportunity.