Emotional Appeals and Norms: How Normative Perceptions Moderate the Persuasive Impacts of Discrete Emotional Appeals within Tobacco Pictorial Warnings in China

Tobacco pictorial warnings could employ a variety of emotional appeals to enhance effectiveness; however, little research exists to guide the selection of discrete emotional appeals. Further, it remains unclear how contextual pro-smoking norms might influence the persuasive impacts of discrete emotional appeals within pictorial warnings, especially in China, where the overall smoking rate and social acceptance remain high. To fill these gaps, this study leveraged the largest set of pictorial warnings (K = 510) tested to date. Using a randomized large-K multiple-message design, we evaluated the impacts of disgust, fear, self-anger, contempt, shame, and hope appeals among Chinese adult male smokers (N = 2,306) on perceived message effectiveness (PME). Results showed that fear, self-anger, shame, and hope appeals significantly increased PME, while disgust and contempt appeals appeared less effective. Importantly, the PME of nearly all emotional appeals - except hope appeals - was weakened for Chinese adult male smokers with higher pro-smoking normative perceptions, highlighting the importance of considering local contextual influences when implementing pictorial warnings.