Construction of smoking-relevant risk perceptions among college students: The influence of need for cognition and message content

Changing smokers' health-risk perceptions has been difficult. This study tested whether need for cognition (NC)-a factor within Petty & Cacioppo's (1986) elaboration likelihood model that reflects the preference for effortful cognitive information processing - moderated responses to a smoking risk message intervention. College smokers (n = 227) evaluated a fact-based or emotion-based smoking risk pamphlet or a control pamphlet. Among occasional but not daily smokers, NC interacted as hypothesized with type of message to moderate risk perceptions. Among participants with higher NC, the fact-based message produced the greatest increase in risk perception; whereas among participants with lower NC, the emotion-based message produced the greatest change. Findings demonstrate that individual differences in cognitive processing can influence the potency of health-risk messages.