Language of motivation and emotion in an internet support group for smoking cessation: explorative use of automated content analysis to measure regulatory focus.
The present study describes a novel approach to the identification of the motivational processes in text data extracted from an Internet support group (ISG) for smoking cessation. Based on the previous findings that a "prevention" focus might be more relevant for maintaining behavior change, it was hypothesized that 1) language use (ie, the use of emotional words) signaling a "promotion" focus would be dominant in the initiating stages of the ISG, and 2) that the proportion of words signaling a prevention focus would increase over time. The data were collected from the ISG site, spanning 4 years of forum activity. The data were analyzed using the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count application. The first hypothesis - of promotion focus dominance in the initiating stages - was not supported during year 1. However, for all the other years measured, the data showed that a prevention failure was more dominant compared with a promotion failure. The results indicate that content analysis could be used to investigate motivational and language-driven processes in ISGs. Understanding the interplay between self-regulation, lifestyle change, and modern communication channels could be of vital importance in providing the public with better health care services and interventions.
Department of Clinical Dentistry, University of Tromsø, Tromsø
Jan-Are K
JA
Johnsen
Department of Psychology, University of Tromsø, Tromsø
Sara M
SM
Vambheim
Division of Addiction and Specialized Psychiatry, University Hospital of North-Norway ; Department of Clinical Medicine, University of Tromsø, Tromsø
Rolf
R
Wynn
Division of Addiction and Specialized Psychiatry, University Hospital of North-Norway ; Narvik University College, Narvik, Norway.
Silje C
SC
Wangberg
behavior change; emotion; prevention; self-regulation