The Role of Negative Emotions Pre- and Post-Implementation of Graphic Health Warnings: Longitudinal Evidence from South Korea

This longitudinal study investigated the factors that determine the effectiveness of graphic health warnings (GHWs) by comparing 246 South Korean smoker’s responses before and after the introduction of the country’s new tobacco control policy wherein GHWs were placed on all cigarette packaging. Even though introducing GHWs did not cause immediate changes in smokers’ intention to quit smoking or perception of smoking’s health risk, GHWs eventually motivated smokers to quit smoking when they experienced negative emotional responses to the newly introduced graphic warnings on cigarette packaging. More importantly, this study found that positive changes in smokers’ perceived risk associated with smoking due to the introduction of GHWs mediated a positive relationship between changes in smokers’ negative emotions (NE) from text-only warnings to graphic warnings and changes in their intention to quit smoking during the same period. Based on these results, the authors suggest that, for GHW policy to be more effective in motivating smoking cessation, the warnings need to convey images sufficiently unpleasant to induce negative emotional responses among smokers.