Attached
More than 500 million rupees was being spent per
day in Sri Lanka on tobacco and alcohol and the low
income groups are spending 35 percent o f their
earnings on tobacco and alcohol. Therefore, Sri
Lankan government is making continuous effort to
reduce and discourage smoking in the country and
ordered to include health warning pictorial messages
covering 80% of the cigarette packet in addition to
the advertising restriction through public media for
cigarettes and alcohol. But, according to many
scholars, tobacco company advertisements to prevent
smoking are, ineffective and, at worst,
counterproductive. Therefore, the main purpose of
this study is to identify the effectiveness o f health
warning pictorial messages, among Sri Lankan males
and to examine how the perceived effectiveness and
intention to smoke vary according to the level of
psychological reactance levels. Data was collected
through a structured questionnaire taking seventy
males as the sample on convenience basis. In Sri
Lanka, there is no significant relationship between
psychological reactance status and intention to
smoke and there is no high perceived effectiveness
of the pictorial advertisements. Therefore, the
government intention to discourage smoking through
health warning pictorial messages in cigarette
packets is in vain
