This study aimed to investigate gender differences in smoking stigma recognized by Korean smokers and to explore the effect of such gender differences on the effectiveness of smoking cessation messages that prime an identity crisis of smokers, providing implications for effective smoking cessation intervention strategies for female smokers. This study used the smoker-gender Implicit Association Test (IAT) to measure the smoking stigma according to smokers' gender, consisting of smoker photos and positive and negative words for 120 smokers aged 19 to 35 years old (60 males and 60 females). To investigate the effect of social stigmatization on smokers, participants were asked to watch anti-smoking campaigns that stigmatizing either smoking behavior or smokers’ self-identity, then the cognitive attitudes and cessation intention were measured repeatedly to show differences according to gender and message conditions. As a result, the D-score of the IAT showed that female smokers perceived same-gender smokers significantly more negatively than male smokers did, suggesting a higher level of smoking stigma in the IAT. Female smokers in the socially stigmatizing condition reduced their negativity on smoking less than female smokers in non-social condition. Moreover, there was no improvement in cessation intention when female smokers received identity-threatening messages, which meant female smokers tended to resist the stigmatizing messages. The results of this study provided empirical evidence to the fact that the gender of Korean smokers is a proficient variable related to the significant differences in smoking stigma.

Authors:
Jang-Han Lee, Chung-Ang University, South Korea
Seung-Hyuk Ha, Chung-Ang University, South Korea
Jang-Sun Hwang, Chung-Ang University, South Korea

About the Presenter(s)
Professor Jang-Han Lee is a University Professor/Principal Lecturer at Chung-Ang University in South Korea

See this presentation on the full schedule – Tuesday Schedule

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