You might think, what does being good at math and smoking have to do with each other?
`These results may help explain why many studies find that more educated smokers are more likely to successfully quit smoking,` said associate professor of psychology Brittany Shoots-Reinhard,
But should we refer smokers to extra math classes to help them kick their habit?
How is the experiment performed?
In their study, scientists at Ohio University recruited 696 adult smokers.
Participants were then shown eight different cigarette warning labels, each displayed four times on the screen.
The special thing is that each of these warning stickers will have an additional line of notes (according to US federal law) about the harmful effects of cigarettes, along with risk probability information for smokers.
At different points in time, participants were asked to rate their emotional response to each label, along with their perceived credibility and degree of personalization.
At the end of the experiment, each person will be given an additional questionnaire to check how much information they remember about the harms and risks of smoking.
Participants were then released and scheduled to return 6 weeks later to take the test again.
People who are better at math have a higher determination to quit smoking
Publishing the trial results in the journal Health Psychology, the authors said the study reconfirmed findings from previous research.
However, after 6 weeks, smokers were more likely to recall graphic images that evoked strong emotions than cartoon graphics that evoked weak emotions.
Beyond all the effects of imagery, though, scientists found that people who scored higher on an initial math test tended to remember better about the risks associated with exercise.
`People with better math skills remembered more of the scary numbers we gave them about smoking risks, and that made a difference,` Shoots-Reinhard said.
How to help people who are not good at math quit smoking?
Thus, people who are better at math mean they are better able to remember numbers about the harmful effects of cigarettes.
Shoots-Reinhard said the study results are useful for health officials and policymakers to evaluate how they are providing risk information to smokers.
`Smokers with poor arithmetic often have very superficial knowledge about the health risks of their habit,` Shoots-Reinhard said.
That means the information printed on warning labels on the outside of cigarette packs is not being effectively conveyed to those who need to understand them most.
`We need to find a way to communicate that to people who don’t understand numbers very well,` Shoots-Reinhard said.
`We want people to understand risk information to make more informed decisions. Our results show that it can help them make the decision to quit smoking,` Shoots-Reinhard said.
Refer to Technologynetworks
