Social Influence in Personally Relevant Contexts: The Respect Attributed to the Source as a Factor Increasing Smokers’ Intention to Quit Smoking1

The study examined the effects of the status of the source in personally relevant persuasion contexts. Smokers (N= 117) with either weak or strong identity as smokers were exposed to an anti‐smoking message, targeting either the tobacco industry or smokers, and attributed either to a health institute or a neighborhood association. The main dependent variable was the change in intention to quit smoking. As expected, the neighborhood association was considered more respectful of the freedom of choice of the target than was the health institute. In high personal relevance conditions (i.e., participants with strong identities as smokers and message explicitly targeting smokers), smokers strengthened their intention to quit smoking when the source was the neighborhood association, but decreased it when the source was the health institute. Implications for health campaign implementation are discussed.