Facilitating effects of daily contact between partners who make a decision to cut down on smoking.

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Conducted a field experiment in a smoking clinic with 30 adults who volunteered to attend 5 weekly meetings with a consultant. Pairs of Ss were assigned to 1 of 3 equivalent experimental groups; high-contact partners, who phoned each other daily; low-contact partners, who spoke with each other only at clinic meetings; and controls, who had a different partner at each meeting. At the last clinic session, the high-contact Ss showed more positive effects than the other 2 groups on measures indicating that they developed (a) more unfavorable attitudes toward smoking (p<.01), (b) more favorable attitudes toward the clinic (p<.05) and toward the partner (p<.05), and (c) fewer withdrawal symptoms of anxiety after cutting down on smoking (p<.05). Follow-up interviews indicate that during the subsequent year the high-contact Ss continued to smoke fewer cigarettes (p<.01) than Ss in the other 2 groups, almost all of whom reverted to their former smoking habits. The high-contact Ss reported, however, that they had discontinued contacting each other by 4 wk. after the final clinic session. Alternative explanatory hypotheses were assessed by taking account of supplementary observations, including a content analysis of the Ss' conversations during meetings. The most plausible mediating factor appears to be the increase in interpersonal attraction produced by daily contact, which makes for increased valuation of the clinic group and internalization of the norms conveyed by the consultant leader. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)

This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: