Presenter: Jessica Montgomery
Mentor: Sara Hodges
Oral Presentation
Major: Psychology/German
Cigarette smoking has become increasingly moralized over the last half-century. Moralization is the process by which moral value is attached to objects and activities that were previously morally irrelevant. Moralization of smoking is an individual-level phenomenon (reflected in an individual’s attitudes towards smoking) as well as a cultural-level phenomenon (reflected in anti-smoking policies). We studied moralization of smoking in two cultural contexts (Eugene, Oregon and Tübingen, Germany). We chose Germany because smoking is more prevalent there than in the U.S. (World Health Organization, 2011) and although culture and laws are changing in Germany toward greater prohibition of smoking, it seems that new antismoking laws are weakly or sporadically enforced (Wiesel, 2009). Participants were asked by research assistants on and around university campuses to complete a questionnaire in their native language while the research assistant waited. The questionnaire included questions about moralization of cigarette smoking and related constructs, beliefs about smokers’ volitional control over smoking, prejudice against smokers, and support for anti-smoking policy. In this way we measured the attitudes that lead to relevant real-world outcomes such as differential treatment of cigarette smokers. We will compare their responses cross culturally as well as divide them into smokers and nonsmokers, in order to establish which factors affect their perceptions. We predict that Germans will moralize smoking less than Americans, which we expect to find after analyzing the results from the questionnaires.