Construal Level as a Novel Pathway for Affect Regulation and Cancer Control

"In the high-level construal condition, participants will be sent messages asking them to consider why they are quitting (What are your main reasons for quitting?) and to imagine what their lives will look like in the future if they succeed (What would quitting mean to you and your family's future?; Yeager et al., 2014). The corpus for this condition is 100 messages composed by a large independent sample of mTurk workers who are smokers and validated by a team of RAs trained to 0.8 reliability on ratings of high-level construal. To meet criteria for inclusion, a message must be rated as significantly closer to high-level (vs. low-level) on a rating scale of construal level.~In addition to the texting, participants will complete biweekly online booster sessions using Qualtrics with a custom, personalized link sent to the participant via email and text."

"In the down-regulation of craving condition, participants will be sent messages that encourage inhibitory control of cravings for cigarettes (e.g., using cognitive reappraisal or attentional control) and that provide strategies to do so (e.g., When you feel an urge to smoke, think about the health consequences). The corpus for this condition is 100 messages composed by a large, independent sample of mTurk smokers and validated by a team of RAs trained to 0.8 reliability on ratings of plausibility AND effortful cognitive inhibition or control.~In addition to the texting, participants will complete biweekly online booster sessions using Qualtrics with a custom, personalized link sent to the participant via email and text."

"In the up-regulation of goal energization condition, participants will be sent messages that encourage them to consider the core values that drive their desire to quit smoking. These messages will name a specific core value that the participant rated in the top three (of 19) during the baseline session, and will draw a connection between quitting and the core value. For example, a message for a person who nominated family as one of her top three core values might read, Quitting will help you model a healthy lifestyle for your family. This intervention is grounded in robust theory and evidence supporting Self-Affirmation Theory. The corpus for this condition is 100 messages composed by a large, independent sample of mTurk smokers and validated by a team of RAs trained to 0.8 reliability in correctly identifying to which core value the message is tied.~In addition to the texting, participants will complete biweekly online booster sessions using Qualtrics."