Psychological Reactance and Effect of Health Warning Pictorial Messages Printed in Cigarette Packets in Sri Lanka

Abstract

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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