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

Summary

The objective of the proposed research is to conduct a longitudinal experiment on the neurocognitive pathways and individual differences in high-level construal for affect regulation and smoking cessation. The population is adult smokers aged 25-55 who have tried and failed to quit and who are experiencing poverty. The primary endpoints are (a) the similarity in neural representation of high-level construal to one of two candidate pathways, (b) the presence of meaningful individual differences in the neural representation of high-level construal, and (c) as a secondary endpoint, the effect size of the high-level construal condition on smoking as measured by cigarettes per day.

Each of these endpoints corresponds to a specific null hypothesis. The null hypothesis for the first endpoint is that high-level construal is not significantly different in its neural representation from down-regulation of craving, which would suggest that high-level construal does not operate through distinct mechanisms from traditional treatments. The null hypothesis for the second endpoint is that the between-subjects variability in the neural representation of construal level does not significantly relate to relevant individual differences measures (e.g., traits, task behavior), which would suggest that individual differences are not meaningfully related to outcomes. Finally, the null hypothesis for the secondary endpoint is that the magnitude of the effect of high-level construal on smoking as measured by reductions in average cigarettes per day is not significantly greater than in the other conditions, which would suggest that the efficacy of the high-level construal condition is not significantly greater than a standard text-messaging intervention.

The primary endpoints will be assessed at baseline and change from pre-to-post training (8 weeks).

Conditions

• Smoking Cessation
• Smoking Reduction
• Cancer

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

High-level construal

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.

BEHAVIORAL

Down-regulation of craving for cigarettes

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.

BEHAVIORAL

Up-regulation of goal energization

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.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Ohio State University

  collaborator OTHER

• University of Oregon

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Elliot T Berkman, Ph.D. · University of Oregon

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

BASIC_SCIENCE

Masking

TRIPLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

25 Years

Max Age

55 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2021-10-11

Primary Completion

2025-08-30

Completion

2025-12-30

Countries

• United States

Study Locations