Benefits and Tradeoffs of Personalized Normative Feedback for Correcting Misperceptions of Vaping Norm among U.S....

Young adults often overestimate the prevalence of vaping among their peers, and this misperception significantly contributes to vaping behavior within this population, suggesting the need for correcting misperceptions of vaping norms to discourage vaping. Personalized normative feedback (PNF) has been shown to be an effective strategy for correcting normative misperceptions and motivating healthy behaviors in other contexts. The current study examined personalized normative feedback (PNF) as a strategy for correcting misperceptions of vaping norms among young adults who were currently vaping.

U.S. college students (N = 418) who reported vaping in the past 30 days (i.e., currently vaping) were randomly assigned to one of four conditions (stand-alone PNF, information-only message about vaping risks, multi-component PNF combining stand-alone PNF and vaping risks information, no-message control) in a between-subjects experiment.

Both the stand-alone PNF and the multi-component PNF conditions significantly reduced perceived vaping norm post intervention, compared to the information-only and control conditions. Though the multi-component PNF was perceived as more believable than the stand-alone PNF intervention, both conditions were seen as less believable than the information-only intervention. There was no significant impact of conditions on vaping attitude or intention to quit vaping.

The study provided some initial evidence that PNF (both as a stand-alone and multi-component intervention) can correct misperceptions of vaping norms. However, such a benefit in using PNF interventions came with an unintended effect in that they negatively impacted message believability, especially the stand-alone intervention.