Does Smokers’ Self-Construal Moderate the Effect of (Self-)persuasion on Smoking?

The influence of culture and close others on the effectiveness of (self)-persuasion

Although self-persuasion was shown to be more effective than direct persuasion in changing attitudes and intentions, its effectiveness in different cultures remains unclear. Furthermore, research suggests that Eastern individuals tend to incorporate close others in the self to a larger extent than Western individuals. Combining both lines of research, the current studies examined whether thinking of a close other would influence the effectiveness of (self)-persuasion across cultures. Two parallel studies were conducted. U.S. participants (n_study 1 = 195; n_study 2 = 292) and Chinese participants (n_study 1 = 187; n_study 2 = 313) reported their initial attitudes and intentions toward five target behaviors prior to either think of a specific close other or not. Subsequently, they were randomly assigned to receive either a self-persuasion or a direct persuasion task. Specifically, the self-persuasion task led participants to generate own arguments or arguments that they think the close other would give; the direct persuasion task led participants to read given arguments or imagine that the arguments were from the close other. In the end, all participants reported their attitudes and intentions again after doing the persuasion tasks. The moderation effect of culture was only found in Study 1, such that direct persuasion worked more effectively in Chinese participants than self-persuasion, whereas the effectiveness of the two persuasive techniques did not differ in U.S. participants. In both studies, thinking of a close other was not found to influence the effectiveness of (self-)persuasion across cultures. Possible explanations and future research directions were discussed.

Self-Persuasion Increases Healthy Eating Intention Depending on Cultural Background

Unhealthy eating behavior has become a global health risk and thus needs to be influenced. Previous research has found that self-persuasion is more effective than direct persuasion in changing attitudes and behavioral intentions, but the influence of the cultural backgrounds of those being persuaded remains unclear. We conducted two studies to investigate the effectiveness of self-persuasion and direct persuasion techniques in promoting healthy eating intention among different ethnicities in the Netherlands. Native Dutch, Moroccan–Dutch, and Turkish–Dutch participated both online and offline. Participants saw a poster with either a self-persuasion message (“Why would you choose healthier food?”) or a direct persuasion message (“Choose healthier food!”), and were then asked to report their intention to eat healthily in the upcoming month. Significant cultural differences were found between native Dutch and Moroccan–Dutch in Study 1, and between the native Dutch and Turkish-Dutch who participated offline in Study 2. Accordingly, cultural background was found to moderate the relationship between persuasion and healthy eating intention among these groups. These results provided preliminary evidence for the moderation effect of persuasion on healthy eating intention: Self-persuasion appears to be more effective for people with an individualistic background, and direct persuasion appears to be more effective for people with a collectivistic background.