Risk denial about smoking hazards and readiness to quit among French smokers: an exploratory study.
In most developed countries, a significant part of the population is still smoking despite comprehensive tobacco control policies. Among other reasons, many smokers may endorse self-exempting beliefs that help them to deny the smoking hazards for themselves. We investigated the relationship between smokers' risk denial and their readiness to quit making use of a French cross-sectional survey conducted in the Paris Ile-de-France Region (N=939 smokers). Self-exempting beliefs were quite widespread among participants and two of them were significant predictors of a low readiness to quit: considering that one's cigarette consumption is too low to be harmful and believing that one's way of smoking can protect from smoking-related diseases. Future tobacco control messages and interventions should specifically address these self-exempting beliefs that reduce smokers' cognitive dissonance and then inhibit their willingness to quit.
Peretti-Watel
Patrick
P
Centre for Disease Control of South-Eastern France, 23 rue Stanislas Torrents, 13006 Marseilles, France. peretti@marseille.inserm.fr
Halfen
Sandrine
S
Grémy
Isabelle
I
D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001294:Attitude to Health; D003376:Counseling; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D003717:Denial, Psychological; D019049:Developed Countries; D005260:Female; D005602:France; D006801:Humans; D016015:Logistic Models; D008297:Male; D009042:Motivation; D020377:Self Efficacy; D016540:Smoking Cessation / Q000523:psychology*; D012923:Social Class; D044465:White People