| Abstract: | People's self‐regulatory focus may determine the effectiveness of stop‐smoking campaigns. An experiment with 226 young smokers investigated the persuasiveness of different emotional appeals for different self‐regulatory foci. A congruency effect emerges for attitude toward the advertisement and behavioral intentions: Young smokers with a promotion focus are more persuaded by sadness–joy than fear–relief campaigns, and the opposite is true for those with a prevention focus. As predicted by the regulatory relevancy principle, ad involvement mediates this effect. |
