Table 1.

Psychological principles underpinning the different components of Stoptober.

Psychological principle	Relevant components in Stoptober
Social contagion theory: Social networks act as conduits for the spread of attitudes and behaviours. Insofar that messaging can convince a crowd of people to focus their attention on the same common event or goal, social networks will then amplify the reach and intensity of the message	The messaging of the campaign called upon all smokers to attempt to stop smoking on the same date. The campaign was named ‘Stoptober’, as a combination of Stop and October, and was designed to build wide engagement with the event from association with other positive, popular national events that have successfully used similar monikers (e.g., ‘Movember’) and to encourage easy dissemination both by word-of-mouth and social media. The campaign was widely broadcast through a combination of traditional and new mass media including TV, press, radio and online adverts, public relations messaging, and Facebook and Twitter activity
SMART goals: SMART goals aim to help people achieve a difficult behavioural goal by encouraging them to begin with a very specific intermediary goal, which seems more attainable, and providing the best possible tools to help them attain that goal	Stoptober set people the challenge, or SMART goal, of being smoke-free for 28 days starting on October 1st 2012
PRIME theory: Behaviour is determined on a moment-to-moment basis by a wide variety of motivational inputs, from impulses and inhibitory forces, through desires, drives, and emotional states, to evaluations and plans. As a result the motivational system is inherently unstable and requires constant balancing input to maintain a constant pattern of behaviour. Apparently small external triggers can affect a sudden transition in the system. Whether a change is maintained will depend upon balancing the variety of motivational forces determining the behaviour. Thus, interventions to affect change are more likely to be successful if they target the whole motivational system, rather than just some elements of it, and aim to both weaken the motivational forces to engage in a behaviour and create new sources of desire and control to refrain from it	Stoptober provided triggers for smoking cessation by (i) frequent positive messaging encouraging smokers to stop, and (ii) providing an opportunity to do so at the same time as others. The intervention maximised its likelihood of helping smokers to achieve a smoke-free month by providing a wide variety of support including a postal pack for all those who signed up and a wealth of digital tools from an accompanying website offering brief advice on smoking cessation, to peer support via Facebook, a motivational text-messaging programme and an app to provide ongoing encouragement and self-monitoring tools