Table 1.
Available studies and hypothetical examples of tobacco interventions by behavioral economic principle.
| Hypothetical Example | Available Studies and Sample Size | |
|---|---|---|
|
1. Other people’s behavior matters | ||
| Influencer campaigns | Produce campaigns from influencers who themselves have quit smoking about the process and its outcomes | Klesges (1987) n = 136 [12]; Cummings (1988) n = 354 [13]; Sloan (1990) n = 73 [14]; Wiborg (2002) n = 2142 [15]; Crone (2003) n = 2562 [16]; Schneider (2006) n= 4358 [17]; Hanewinkel (2007) n = 12,812 [18]; Schulze (2006) n = 1704 [19]. |
| Social group quitting | Run quit interventions through groups of colleagues, religious community members, or designated “quit buddies” | |
| Learning from others | Counsel patients on how many others use smoking cessation medications to increase acceptance | |
|
2. Habits are important | ||
| Cue replacement | Package nicotine replacement therapy in cigarette boxes and place those boxes where someone normally keeps cigarettes | Epstein, (1991) n = 8 [20]; DeGrandpre (1994) n = 6 [27]; Bickle (1997) n = 4 [30]; Tidey (1999) n = 6 [21]; Shahan (2000) n = 8 [28]; Johnson (2003) n = 11 [22]; Audrain-McGovern (2004) n = 983 [23]; Leventhal (2014) n = 275 [24]; Goelz (2014) n = 469 [25]; Murphy (2016) n = 86 [26]; Snider (2017) n = 385 [29]; Peters (2017) n = 82 [31]; Sohlberg (2020) n = 705 [32]. |
| Behavior replacement | Provide alternatives to cigarettes that mimic the smoking experience people can use at the time they normally smoke, e.g., e-cigarettes | |
| Default Bias | Provide smoking counseling to all patients unless they opt out | |
|
3. People are motivated to ‘do the right thing’ | ||
| Collective goals | Create teams to collectively achieve a smoking cessation goal, e.g., teams of two or more smokers who receive an incentive if all team members achieve defined goals such as starting medication, attending counseling, or maintaining abstinence | No studies identified |
| Promises to others | Have the participant make a pledge directly to a family member/close friend who will then participate in formal check-ins | |
|
4. People’s self-expectations influence how they behave | ||
| Quitting pledge | Create a scenario in which quitting smoking is an expectation using a pledge that participants must sign and announce to others | Singh (1988) n = 7 [33]; Bowers (1987) n = 28 [34]. |
| Setting expectations | Have smokers set an expected smoking target, such as a number reduced of cigarettes per day, and have participants keep a log of their smoking to compare | |
|
5. People are loss-averse and hang on to what they consider ‘theirs’ | ||
| Incentive deduction | Offer a set amount of money to all who complete a smoking cessation program and deduct money for each check-in after a predetermined cessation date at which participants are not abstinent | Winett (1973) n = 45 [35]; Paxton (1980) n = 60 [36]; Paxton (1983) n = 60 [37]; Toll (2007) n = 258 [39]; Dallery (2008) n = 8 [38]. |
| Deposit loss | Have a patient have a buy-in that is returned only if goals are met | |
|
6. People are bad at computation | ||
| Regret lottery | Run a “regret” lottery in which smokers are told what they would have won had they completed the required action (e.g., abstaining or using medications for cessation) if they fail to complete an assigned task | Ohmura (2005) n = 50 [40]; Field (2006) n = 30 [41]; Sheffer (2012) n = 97 [42]; MacKillop (2012) n = 13 [43]; Leone (2015) n = 42 [44]. |
| Immediate reward | Give rewards at the time of completing a task, rather than at the end of an intervention | |
|
7. People need to feel involved and effective to make a change | ||
| Intervention choice | Allow smokers to choose a smoking cessation intervention from a selection of evidence-based approaches | No studies identified |
| Quit date choice | Allow smokers to choose and set their own smoking quit date | |