摘要：Objectives . This study examined the relative perceived effectiveness of 30 antidrug public service announcements (PSAs) and assessed the extent to which judgments of effectiveness are related to judgments of realism, amount learned, and positive and negative emotional responses. Methods . Data were obtained from 3608 students in grades 5 through 12 in 10 schools. The ethnically diverse sample was 50.8% male. Students in 5 experimental conditions viewed sets of 6 antidrug PSAs and filled out a brief evaluation questionnaire following each PSA. Those in the control condition viewed a non–drug-related television program. Results . The relative perceived effectiveness of the 30 PSAs varied considerably. Sixteen were rated as significantly more effective, and 6 as significantly less effective, than the control program. Relative rated effectiveness was highly related to realism ( r = .87), amount learned ( r = .88), negative emotion ( r = .87), and positive emotion ( r = –.35). Conclusions . Evaluative research is necessary to prevent broadcast of PSAs that could have a negative impact. PSAs should point out the negative consequences of drug use behavior rather than telling adolescents to “just say no.” On July 15, 1998, New York Times columnist Frank Rich ridiculed an ad aired as part of a $200 million federal effort to minimize adolescents' use of illegal drugs. “In this elegantly shot display of high-concept Madison Avenue creativity,” wrote Rich, “a young woman armed with a skillet angrily smashes an egg and then an entire kitchen to dramatize the destructiveness of heroin. . . . The woman looks like Winona Ryder; she's wearing a tight tank top; there are no visible track marks on her junkie-thin arms; and the kitchen representing her drug-induced hell is echt Pottery Barn, if not Willams-Sonoma. Far from discouraging teenagers from drug use, our anti-heroin heroine—sexy when she gets mad—may inspire some of them to seek out a vixen like her for a date.” 1 The problem with critiques such as Rich's is that middle-aged, upper-class, White columnists were not the intended audience for the ad. Nonetheless, later in the column, he makes an important assumption, and one we share. Such ads should be tested rigorously before being aired. With the passage of HR 4328 (Pub L No. 105-277) in 1997, the US government embarked on its first funded media campaign to reduce “risky” behaviors and to promote “healthy” ones. The centerpiece of the campaign, which focuses on minimizing illegal drug use (particularly marijuana and inhalants) among young adolescents who have not yet become “regular” users of an illegal substance, is televised antidrug public service announcements (PSAs). A critical question is whether such a campaign has the potential for producing behavior change in this target population. Although there is some evidence that mass media campaigns can be successful, 2– 5 most studies evaluating mass media campaigns have found little or no effect. 4, 6– 8 To a large extent, this failure has been attributed to the fact that most health promotion campaigns have been underfunded, limiting the reach and frequency of the messages. In addition, they have relied on the goodwill of broadcasters to place PSAs in time periods watched by the target audience. While exposure is clearly a critical element in the success of any media campaign, one must also pay careful attention to the content of the message. Recent advances in behavioral science theory and research have pointed out the importance of message content and the need to design theoretically and empirically based behavioral change interventions. 9– 13 Although these studies have typically not relied on mass media to deliver the message, they do provide evidence that theoretically based messages addressing the beliefs and values of a specific population can significantly change behavior. More specifically, although knowledge about a disease and about how it is spread appears to have little relation to healthprotective behaviors, 14– 17 messages targeting outcome expectancies (i.e., beliefs about the consequences of performing the behavior), normative beliefs (i.e., beliefs about the behaviors and normative proscriptions of relevant others), and self-efficacy beliefs (i.e., beliefs that one can perform the behavior, even under a number of difficult conditions) have produced behavior change. 10– 13, 18– 21 The effectiveness of these types of messages, however, depends on both the desired behavior and the target population. For example, for some behaviors, attitudinal considerations (i.e., beliefs about the consequences of performing the behavior) may be the primary determinants, while for other behaviors, attitudinal considerations may be relatively unimportant and either perceived norms or self-efficacy may be the critical variable. Similarly, although a given behavior may be attitudinally driven in one population, it may be normatively controlled in another. 22, 23 In addition, it should be recognized that beliefs that may be important determinants of attitudes, perceived norms, or self-efficacy in one population may be unimportant in another. Moreover, it is unfortunately true that messages often target beliefs that are already strongly held by the population in question (e.g., “smoking is harmful to health”). Thus, for any behavioral change intervention to be effective, it is first necessary to understand the factors underlying the behavior in the population in question. In other words, one must first determine the extent to which the behavior is influenced by attitudes, norms, or self-efficacy and then identify the critical beliefs underlying those important psychosocial variables. Given that this type of preparatory research is rarely done, it should come as no surprise that most interventions and mass media campaigns fail. Equally important, aside from some qualitative research, typically to determine whether 1 or more target audiences “understand” and “like” or “dislike” the PSA, there have been few attempts to empirically evaluate the potential effectiveness of televised PSAs designed to change healthrelated behaviors. For example, to the best of our knowledge, none of the PSAs investigated in this study were subjected to experimental evaluation before being broadcast. Given the fact that few, if any, were developed with the kind of quantitative research we have described, it is quite likely that there will be wide variation in the PSAs' potential for producing behavioral change. Perhaps more important, although many of these PSAs may in fact be helpful in preventing the initiation of drug use, it would not be surprising to find that at least some are having no effect, while still others may be having negative effects (i.e., may be increasing rather than decreasing the likelihood that adolescents will try or use illicit drugs). The purpose of this study was to evaluate the potential effectiveness of 30 antidrug PSAs produced by the Partnership for a Drug Free America (PDFA). More specifically, we examine the extent to which adolescent boys and girls view these 30 PSAs as being effective. In addition, we examine the extent to which judgments of effectiveness are related to judgments of realism and learning (i.e., did the adolescents feel that they learned something new from the PSA), as well as to the adolescents' positive and negative emotional responses to the PSA. It is important to recognize that judgments of effectiveness may or may not be related to the extent to which a given message actually prevents illicit drug use behaviors. However, it seems reasonable to assume that judgments of effectiveness may be a necessary (although not a sufficient) condition for producing actual change in the psychosocial determinants of drug use behaviors (i.e., underlying beliefs, attitudes, perceived norms, self-efficacy, and intention). Thus, the present study can be looked at as a first step in evaluating the potential effectiveness of antidrug PSAs. Generally speaking, we expected to find wide variation in the perceived effectiveness of the 30 PSAs. Moreover, considering the PSA as the unit of analysis, we expected that the more one learned from a PSA and the more “realistic” the PSA, the more it would be seen as effective. Finally, it seemed reasonable to assume that PSAs directed toward outcome beliefs, norms, or self-efficacy would be perceived to be more effective than those that did not address these underlying psychosocial variables.
