Narrative tools to quit smoking. Indirect effects of audience-character similarity and narrative voice in the intention to quit smoking

The present study tries to contrast how certain characteristics of the narrative messages of smoking prevention induce states of involvement that facilitate persuasion. The main objective is to analyze the factors that can increase the effectiveness of narrative interventions for smoking prevention aimed at adults. Three experimental investigations will be carried out. The first two experiments will have a 2 (narrative voice in first vs. third person) by 2 (similarity with the protagonist in behavioral terms) factorial design. For this, four written narratives will be developed for each experiment on ex-smokers and will be distributed randomly through Qualtrics. The third experiment will consist in the development and validation of a mobile application to stop smoking, taking the results of this project as a reference. In the first experiment we observed that the optimal reception condition increased the identification with the protagonist, and this produced grater cognitive elaboration, expectations of self-efficacy and perception of the effectiveness of the preventive response, causing more intention to stop smoking. However, the optimal reception condition did not increase the narrative transport, therefore, indirect, direct or total effects were not observed.