14 DAY TRIAL // Most cigarette packs nowadays feature shock imagery and messages prominently. This is done in order to encourage people to quit the habit, but new research indicates that this may not be the best way to go about promoting a healthier lifestyle. The study indicates that positive imagery may have a more beneficial effect.
Researchers at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) say that positive imagery and visualizations also have a significant impact on smokers, making them equally likely to quit the habit.
Some of the images currently used around the world to promote this include rotting lungs, pictures of bodies in the morgue with name tags attached, images of lung or throat cancer, and depictions of artery lines with fat. Messages such as “Smokers die younger” also accompany these images.
It could be that a similar effect – of getting smokers to kick their habit – can also be obtained through positive image, such as those evoking things smokers usually forget. This may include, for example, a picture of a person breathing normally, or without headaches and clogged airways.
As a smoker, I can attest that this would be far more likely to encourage me to quit than seeing dead people and diseases on every pack of cigarettes I buy.