Monitor on Psychology - December 2011 - (Page 55)

the effects of graphic warning labels and other anti-smoking efforts. “We have many natural experiments confirming that in the real world, warning labels work,” he says. Fong and his colleagues survey thousands of adult smokers in each country every year. They ask smokers how often they’ve noticed the warnings and how the warnings have affected their thoughts and behaviors. The survey also measures smokers’ knowledge of the risks of smoking, such as whether they know that smoking can cause stroke. In every country, the results of the ITC survey have suggested that the new warning labels are more effective than the old ones, Fong says. When Thailand moved from text-only to large, graphic warnings in 2006, the number of Thai smokers who said that warning labels made them think a lot about the health risks of smoking increased by 55 percent, and the number who said that labels made them a lot more likely to quit increased by 41 percent. Nearby Malaysia, which kept its small, text-only labels, saw no such attitude changes that year. “The experiences of many countries — including Canada, Mauritius, Thailand, Mexico, Uruguay — have shown significant increases in many indicators of warning label impact,” Fong says. “There are higher levels of noticing; much higher reports that the warning labels make you think about the DeceMber 2011 • Monitor on psychology health risks of smoking; a greater likelihood of considering quitting; and among people who have quit, a greater attribution of graphic warning labels as being part of that.” One impact measure that’s missing from the ITC study, however, is smoking prevalence. The survey measures only attitudes, not whether people actually quit smoking. That’s because many factors can influence smoking rates, making it impossible to isolate the effect of graphic warning labels or other individual anti-smoking efforts, says David Hammond, PhD, a psychologist in the school of public health at the University of Waterloo and one of Fong’s collaborators on the ITC study. At the same time that a country introduces new labels, for example, it might also introduce a new tax that increases the price of cigarettes, or it might ban cigarettes in restaurants, bars and other public places. Further complicating matters, those taxes and bans can happen on the local level, too. Smoking prevalence “is like the economy — it’s hard to pin it to one factor,” Hammond says. But he and Fong say the measures in their survey are backed up by psychological models of health behavior, and the attitude changes that the survey measures are correlated with actual behavior changes — like quitting smoking. In a 2003 study of more than 600 Canadian smokers, 55

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Monitor on Psychology - December 2011

Monitor on Psychology - December 2011
Letters
President’s Column
Contents
From the CEO
Willpower Pioneer Wins $100,000 Grawemeyer Prize
Single-Sex Schooling Called Into Question by Prominent Researchers
Maternal Depression Stunts Childhood Growth, Research Suggests
For Boys, Sharing May Seem Like a Waste of Time
Good News for Postdoc Applicants
In Brief
Treatment Guideline Development Now Under Way
Government Relations Update
Psychologist Named Va Mental Health Chief
The Limits of Eyewitness Testimony
Judicial Notebook
Random Sample
Time Capsule
Deconstructing Suicide
Questionnaire
A Focus on Interdisciplinarity
A Time of ‘Enormous Change’
The Science Behind Team Science
Good Science Requires Good Conflict
A New Paradigm of Care
Speaking of Education
Science Directions
New Labels, New Attitudes?
Psychologist Profile
Early Career Psychology
Unintended Consequences
Better Options for Troubled Teens
Saving Lives, One Organ at a Time
New Journal Editors
APA News
Division Spotlight
Guidelines for the Conduct of President-Elect Nominations and Elections
American Psychological Foundation
Personalities

Monitor on Psychology - December 2011