Looking into the Crystal Ball: Aspirational and Feared Future Selves in People who Smoke

People who smoke often develop a smoking identity, making it challenging to quit. The current study aimed to test whether reflecting on one's most feared and aspirational future selves impacted peoples' smoking identity, smoking intentions, and willingness to make a quitting plan.

Adults who smoke (N = 300) completed an online experiment where they were randomized to a future possible self or control condition. The future-self intervention involved envisioning an aspirational future self as a nonsmoker and future feared self as a smoker. Participants wrote descriptions about and uploaded images representing these possible selves. Those in the control condition wrote about and uploaded images of activities unrelated to smoking. Post-intervention, smoker and nonsmoker identity, intention to quit, and willingness to create a quitting plan were measured as primary outcomes.

In comparison to the control condition (M = 5.53), those in the future self intervention (M = 6.20) had stronger nonsmoker identity (p = 0.004), but no differences in smoker identity. Intervention effects were stronger for precontemplators compared to contemplators/preparers. For precontemplators, those who reflected on their future self had greater intentions to quit compared to control participants (b = 0.87, p = 0.002), and these quit intentions were associated with a greater willingness to draft a quitting plan (OR = 1.03, 95% CI [1.00, 1.07]).

Results suggest that future identity conflict tasks can help people shift from unhealthy to healthy identities, particularly for precontemplators who may not have considered the benefits of quitting.

Our findings suggest that identity-based interventions may be most effective for people who smoke who do not yet intend to quit compared to those already contemplating change.