Smoking scenes in movies and antismoking advertisements before movies: Effects on youth

In two experiments, the authors test rival theses regarding the effects of smoking in feature films on youths and the ability of antismoking advertising to nullify those effects. Eight hundred ninth graders watched either original movie footage with smoking or control footage with the smoking edited out. Emotional reactions were recorded during viewing, and smoking-related thoughts, beliefs, and intent were assessed afterward. The findings support the Forbidden Fruit thesis, in that smoking (versus nonsmoking) scenes positively aroused the young viewers, enhanced their perceptions of smokers' social stature, and increased their intent to smoke. However, youths' opinions were malleable, and showing them an antismoking advertisement before the film effectively repositioned the smoking from forbidden to tainted, thereby nullifying the aforementioned effects, No support was obtained for the Excitation Transfer theory, which predicts that the positive arousal evoked by movie scenes would transfer to smokers who were depicted in those scenes. The authors discuss policy implications for film content and antismoking advertising.