Assessing the Potential Effectiveness of Pictorial Messages to Deter Young Women from Indoor Tanning: An Experimental Study.

Abstract

The recent Surgeon General's call-to-action to prevent skin cancer indicates an urgent need for research on messages to deter young women from tanning indoors. Answering this call, the current study assessed differences in the potential effectiveness of pictorial indoor tanning messages. We randomly assigned undergraduate female participants (N = 568) to one of three message conditions visually depicting health effects, appearance damage, or immediate risks, or to a text-only control. All participants viewed three messages within their condition and answered questions after message exposure. Factorial ANOVAs indicated that compared to the text-only condition, pictorial messages produced greater negative emotional reactions and were perceived as more effective than text-only messages. Text-only messages, however, were significantly more believable than pictorial messages. We observed several differences among the pictorial conditions and among the messages within the pictorial conditions. We conclude that messages discouraging indoor tanning should use pictorial messages illustrating the negative health and appearance damaging effects of indoor tanning, focusing on particular health and appearance consequences. Additional research is needed to guide the selection of images that are believable and will most discourage indoor tanning behavior.