Effects of Contract Framing, Motivation to Quit, and Self‐Efficacy on Smoking Reduction1

Social learning theorists (SLT) have advocated that individual's cognitive beliefs about perceived behavioral ability and outcome expectancies are predictive of behavior change. SLT's also propose that the threat of losing positive rewards may result in greater behavior change than gaining rewards for altering behaviors such as smoking. Specifically, presenting behavioral outcomes in a loss frame context has proven more influential under certain conditions than presenting outcomes in a gain frame context. The present study evaluated the relationship between smoking cessation self-efficacy motivation to quit, and contract framing on smoking reduction. The majority of cognitive and behavioral changes occurred between baseline and 3 months into a 12-month treatment program. An interaction between contract framing and motivation to quit suggested that, for subjects with low motivation, receiving combined (gain plus loss) frame contracts resulted in smoking fewer cigarettes posttreatment than receiving gain frame only contracts. An interaction between framing and self-efficacy also indicated that subjects who received combined frame contracts smoked fewer cigarettes if they had high rather than low self-efficacy beliefs.