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 advertisi ng to nullify those effects. Eight hundred ninth graders watched either ori ginal 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 suppor t the Forbidden Fruit thesis, in that smoking (versus nonsmoking) scenes po sitively aroused the young viewers, enhanced their perceptions of smokers' social stature, and increased their intent to smoke. However, youths' opini ons were malleable, and showing them an antismoking advertisement before th e film effectively repositioned the smoking from forbidden to tainted, ther eby 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 scene s. The authors discuss policy implications for film content and antismoking advertising.